■■■"^^'' JOHN M.% 
 . UBRARY-'' 
 
Cornell University 
 Library 
 
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 the Cornell University Library. 
 
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 CORNELL 
 
 UNIVERSITY 
 
 LIBRARY 
 
 BOUGHT WITH THE INCOME 
 OF THE SAGE ENDOWMENT 
 FUND GIVEN IN 1891 BY 
 
 HENRY WILLIAMS SAGE 
 
TALES OF THE 
 JAZZ AGE 
 
 BY 
 
 F; SCOTT FITZGERALD 
 
 NEW YORK 
 
 CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS 
 
 1922 
 
/^ 
 
 '§ 
 ^ 
 
 ^Ehc>//-;X 
 
 \ 
 
 '0fAr\ ^"^^ 
 
 CoPTSioar, 1922, by 
 CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS 
 
 COPVSIGHT, 1920. BY THE VANITY FAIR PUB. CO., INC. 
 
 CorVRIGHT, 1920, 1921, BY THE METROPOLITAN PUBLICATIONS, INC 
 
 COPYRIGHT. 1920, BY THE CHICAGO TRIBUNE 
 
 Copyright, 1920, by THE CURTIS PUBLISHING CO. 
 
 COPYRIGHT. 1920, 1921, BY THE SMART SET tO. 
 
 Printed in the United States of America 
 
 Published September, 1922 
 
QUITE INAPPROPRIATELY 
 TO MY MOTHER 
 
A TABLE OF CONTENTS 
 
 MY LAST FLAPPERS 
 
 TEE JELLY-BEAN Pages 
 
 This is a Southern story, with the scene laid in the small city 
 of Tarleton, Georgia. I have a profound affection for Tarleton, 
 but somehow whenever I write a story about it I receive letters 
 from all over the South denouncing me in no uncertain terms. 
 "The Jelly-Bean," published in "The Metropolitan," drew 
 its full share of these admonitory notes. 
 
 It was written under strange circumstances shortly after my 
 first novel was published, and, moreover, it was the first story in 
 which I had a collaborator. For, finding that I was unable to 
 manage the crap-shooting episode, I turned it over to my wife, 
 who, as a Southern girl, was presumably an expert on the tech- 
 nique and terminology of that great sectional pastime, 
 
 THE CAMEL'S BACK Page 27 
 
 I suppose that of all the stories I have ever written this one 
 cost me the least travail and perhaps gave me the most amuse- 
 ment. As to the labor involved, it was written during one day 
 in the city of New Orleans, with the express purpose of buying 
 a platinum and diamond wrist watch which cost six hundred 
 dollars. I began it at seven in the morning and finished it at 
 two o'clock the same night. It was published in the "Saturday 
 Evening Post" in 1920, and later included in the O. Henry 
 Memorial Collection for the same year. I like it least of all 
 the stories in this volume. 
 
 My amusement was derived from the fact that the camel part 
 of the story is literally true; in fact, I have a standing engage- 
 ment with the gentleman involved to attend the next fancy-dress 
 party to which we are mutually invited, attired as the latter part 
 of the camel — this as a sort of atonement for being his historian. 
 
viii A TABLE OF CONTENTS 
 
 MAYDAY Page6i 
 
 This somewhat unpleasant tale, published as a nnvdette in 
 the "Smart Set" in July, 1920, relates a series of events which 
 took place in the spring of the previous year. Each of the three 
 events made a great impression upon me. In life they were 
 unrelated, except by the general hysteria of that spring which 
 inaugurated the Age of Jazz, but in my story I have trietl, unr- 
 successfully I fear, to weave them into a pattern — a pattern 
 which would give the effect of those months in New York as they 
 appeared to at least one member of what was then the younger 
 generation. 
 
 PORCELAIN AND PINK Page 126 
 
 "And do you write for any other magazines?" inquired the 
 young lady. 
 
 "Oh, yes," I assured her. "I've had some stories and plays 
 in the 'Smart Set,' for instance " 
 
 The young lady shivered. 
 
 " The ' Smart Set ' / " she exclaimed. "How can you ? Why, 
 they publish stuff about girls in blue bathtubs, and silly things 
 like that I" 
 
 And I had the magnificent joy of telling her that she was re- 
 ferring to "Porcelain and Pink," which had appeared there 
 several months before. 
 
 FANTASIES 
 
 f 
 
 THE DIAMOND AS BIG AS THE RITZ . Page 141 
 
 These next stories are written in what, were I of imposing 
 stature, I should call my "second manner." "The Diamond 
 as Big as the Ritz," which appeared last summer in the "Smart 
 Set," was designed utterly for my own amusement. I was in 
 that familiar mood characterized by a perfect craving for luxury, 
 and the story began as an attempt to feed that craving on im- 
 ginary foods. 
 
 One well-known critic has been pleased to like this extrava- 
 ganza better than anything I have written. Personally I prefer 
 " The Off Shore Pirate." But, to tamper slightly with Lincoln : 
 If you like this sort of thing, this, possibly, is the sort of thing 
 you'll like. 
 
A TABLE OF CONTENTS ix 
 
 THE CURIOUS CASE OF BENJAMIN 
 
 BUTTON Page 192 
 
 This story was inspired by a remark of Mark Twain's to the 
 effect that it was a pity that the best part of life came at the 
 beginning and the worst part at the end. By trying the ex- 
 periment upon only one man in a perfectly normal world I 
 have scarcely given his idea a fair trial. Several weeks after 
 completing it, I discovered an almost identical plot in Samuel 
 Butler's "Note-books." 
 
 The story was published in "Collier's" last summer and 
 provoked this startling letter from an anonymous admirer in 
 Cincinnati: 
 
 "Sir— 
 
 I have read the story Benjamin Button in Colliers and I 
 wish to say that as a short story writer you would make a good 
 lunatic I have seen many peices of cheese in my life but of all 
 the peices of cheese I have ever seen you are the biggest peice. 
 I hate to waste a peice of stationary on you but I will." 
 
 /'tARQUIN of CHEAPSIDE Page 225 
 
 Written almost six years ago, this story is a product of under- 
 graduate days at Princeton. Considerably revised, it was pub- 
 lished in the "Smart Set " in 1921. At the time of its conception 
 I had but one idea — to be a poet — and the fact that I was in- 
 terested in the ring of every phrase, that I dreaded the obvious 
 in prose if not in plot, shows throughout. Probably the peculiar 
 affection I feel for it depends more upon its age than upon any 
 intrinsic merit. 
 
 RUSSET WITCH! Page 234 
 
 When this was written I had just completed the first draft of my 
 second novel, and a natural reaction made me revel in a story 
 wherein none of the characters need be taken seriously. And I'm 
 afraid that I was somewhat carried away by the feeling that there 
 was no ordered scheme to which I must conform. After due con- 
 sideration, however, I have decided to let it stand as it is, although 
 the reader may find himself somewhat puzzled at the time ele- 
 ment. I had best say that however the years may have dealt with 
 Merlin Grainger, I myself was thinking always in the present. 
 
 It was published in the "Metropolitan." 
 
A TABLE OF CONTENTS 
 
 UNCLASSIFIED MASTERPIECES 
 
 TEE LEES OF HAPPINESS Page 275 
 
 Of this story I can say that it came to me in an irresistible 
 form, crying to be written. It will be accused perhaps of being 
 a mere piece of sentimentality, but, as I saw it, it was a great 
 deal more. If, therefore, it lacks the ring of sincerity, or even 
 of tragedy, the fault rests not with the theme but with my han- 
 dling of it. 
 
 It appeared in the "Chicago Tribune," and later obtained, 
 I believe, the quadruple gold laurel leaf or some such encomium 
 from one of the anthologists who at present swarm among us. 
 The gentleman I refer to runs as a rule to stark melodramas 
 with a volcano or the ghost of John Paid Jones in the rSle of 
 Nemesis, melodramas carefully disguised by early paragraphs 
 in Jamesian manner which hint dark and subtle complexities 
 to follow. On this order : 
 
 "The case of Shaw McPhee, curiously enough, had no bear- 
 ing on the almost incredible attitude of Martin Sulo. This is 
 parenthetical and, to at least three observers, whose names for 
 the present I must conceal, it seems improbable, etc., etc., etc.," 
 until the poor rat of fiction is at last forced out into the open 
 and the melodrama begins. 
 
 MR. ICKY Page 302 
 
 This has the distinction of being the only magazine piece 
 ever written in a New York hotel. The business was done in 
 a bedroom in the Knickerbocker, and shortly afterward that 
 memorable hostelry closed its doors forever. 
 
 When a fitting period of mourning had elapsed it was pub- 
 lished in the "Smart Set." 
 
 JEMINA Page 311 
 
 Written, like "Tarquin of Cheap side," while I was at Prince- 
 ton, this sketch was published years later in " Vanity Fair." 
 For its technique I must apologize to Mr. Stephen Leacock. 
 
 I have laughed over it a great deal, especially when I first 
 wrote it, but I can laugh over it no longer. Still, as other people 
 
A TABLE OF CONTENTS xi 
 
 tdl me it is amusing, I include it here. It seems to me worth 
 preserving a few years — at least until the ennui of changing 
 fashions suppresses me, my books, and it together. 
 
 With due apologies for this impossible Table of Contents, I 
 tender these tales of the Jazz Age into the hands of those who 
 read as they run and run as they read. 
 
MY LAST FLAPPERS 
 
THE JELLY-BEAN 
 
 Jim Powell was a Jelly-bean. Much as I desire to 
 make him an appealing character, I feel that it would 
 be unscrupulous to deceive you on that point. He was 
 a bred-in-the-bone, dyed-in-the-wool, ninety-nine three- 
 quarters per cent Jelly-bean and he grew lazily all during 
 Jelly-bean season, which is every season, down^n the 
 land of the Jelly-beans well below the Mason-Dixon line.'} 
 
 Now if you call a Memphis man a Jelly-bean he will 
 quite possibly pull a long sinewy rope from his hip 
 pocket and hang you to a convenient telegraph-pole. 
 If you call a New Orleans man a Jelly-bean he will prob- 
 ably grin and ask you who is taking your girl to the 
 Mardi Gras ball. The particular Jelly-bean patch 
 which produced the protagonist of this history lies 
 somewhere between the two — a little city of forty thou- 
 sand that has dozed sleepily for forty thousand years in 
 southern Georgia, occasionally stirring in its slumbers 
 and muttering something about a war that took place 
 sometime, somewhere, and that everyone else has for- 
 gotten long ago. 
 
 Jim was a JeUy-bean. I write that again because it 
 has such a pleasant sound — rather like the beginning of 
 a fairy story — as if Jim were nice. It somehow gives 
 me a picture of him with a roimd, appetizing face and 
 all sorts of leaves and vegetables growing out of his cap. 
 But Jim was long and thin and. bent at the waist from 
 stooping over pool-tables, and he was what might have 
 been known in the indiscriminating North as a comer 
 loafer. "Jelly-bean" is the name throughout the un- 
 dissolved Confederacy for one who spends his life con- 
 
4 TALES OF THE JAZZ AGE 
 
 jugating the verb to idle in the first person singular — I 
 am idling, I have idled, I will idle. 
 
 Jim was born in a white house on a green corner. It 
 had four weather-beaten pillars in front and a great 
 amount of lattice-work in the rear that made a cheerful 
 criss-cross background for a flowery sim-drenched lawn. 
 Originally the dwellers in the white house had owned 
 the ground next door and next door to that and next 
 door to that, but this had been so long ago that even 
 Jim's father scarcely remembered it. He had, in fact, 
 thought it a matter of so little moment that when he 
 was dying from a pistol wound got in a brawl he neglected 
 even to tell little Jim, who was five years old and miser- 
 ably frightened. The white house became a boarding- 
 house run by a tight-lipped lady from Macon, whom 
 Jim called Aunt Mamie and detested with all his soul. 
 
 He became fifteen, went to high school, wore his hair 
 in black snarls, and was afraid of girls. He hated his 
 home where four women and one old man prolonged 
 an interminable chatter from summer to summer about 
 what lots the Powell place had originally included and 
 what sort of flowers would be out next. Sometimes 
 the parents of little girls in town, remembering Jim's 
 mother and fancying a resemblance in the dark eyes 
 and hair, invited him to parties, but parties made 
 him shy and he much preferred sitting on a dis- 
 connected axle in Tilly's Garage, rolling the bones or 
 exploring his mouth endlessly with a long straw. For 
 pocket money, he picked up odd jobs, and it was due to 
 this that he stopped going to parties. At his third 
 party little Marjorie Haight had whispered indiscreetly 
 and within hearing distance that he was a boy who 
 brought the groceries sometimes. So instead of the 
 two-step and polka, Jim had learned to throw any 
 number he desired on the dice and had^istened to spicy 
 
THE JELLY-BEAN 5 
 
 tales of all the shootings that had occurred in the sur- 
 rounding country during the past fifty years. 
 
 He became eighteen. The war broke out and he 
 enlisted as a gob and polished brass in the Charleston 
 Navy-yard for a year. Then, by way of variety, he 
 went North and polished brass in the Brooklyn Navy- 
 yard for a year. 
 
 When the war was over he came home. He was 
 twenty-one, his trousers were too short and too tight. 
 His buttoned shoes were long and narrow. His tie was 
 an alarming conspiracy of purple and pink marvellously 
 scrolled, and over it were two blue eyes faded like a 
 piece of very good old cloth long exposed to the sim. 
 
 Li the twilight of one April evening when a soft 
 gray had drifted down along the cottonfields and over 
 the sultry town, he was a vague figure leaning against 
 a board fence, whistling and gazing at the moon's rim 
 above the lights of Jackson Street. His mind was work- 
 ing persistently on a problem that had held his attention 
 for an hour. The Jelly-bean had been invited to a 
 party. 
 
 Back in the days when aU the boys had detested all 
 the girls, Clark Darrow and Jim had sat side by side in 
 school. But, while Jim's social aspirations had died 
 in the oily air of the garage, Clark had alternately fallen 
 in and out of love, gone to college, taken to drink, given 
 it up, and, in short, become one of the best beaux of the 
 town. Nevertheless Clark and Jim had retained a friend- 
 ship that, though casual, was perfectly definite. That 
 afternoon Clark's ancient Ford had slowed up beside 
 Jim, who was on the sidewalk and, out of a clear sky, 
 Clark had invited him to a party at the country club. 
 The impulse that made him do this was no stranger 
 than the impulse which made Jim accept. The latter 
 was probably an unconscious ennui, a half-frightened 
 
6 TALES OF THE JAZZ AGE 
 
 sense of adventure. And now Jim was soberly think- 
 ing it over. 
 
 He began to sing, drumming his long foot idly on a 
 stone block in the sidewalk till it wobbled up arid down 
 in time to the low throaty tune: 
 
 "One mile from Home in Jelly-bean town, 
 Lives Jeanne, the Jelly-bean Queen. 
 She loves her dice and treats 'em nice ; 
 No dice would treat her m^an." 
 
 He broke off and agitated the sidewalk to a bumpy 
 gallop. 
 
 "Daggone!" he muttered, half aloud. 
 
 They would all be there — the old crowd, the crowd 
 to which, by right of the white house, sold long 
 since, and the portrait of the officer in gray over the 
 mantel, Jim should have belonged. But that crowd 
 had grown up together into a tight little set as gradu- 
 ally as the girls' dresses had lengthened inch by inch, 
 as definitely as the boys' trousers had dropped suddenly 
 to their ankles. And to that society of first names and 
 dead puppy-loves Jim was an outsider — a running mate 
 of poor whites. Most of the men knew him, con- 
 descendingly; he tipped his hat to three or four girls. 
 That was all. 
 
 When the dusk had thickened into a blue setting for 
 the moon, he walked through the hot, pleasantly 
 pungent town to Jackson Street. The stores were closing 
 and the last shoppers were drifting homeward, as if borne 
 on the dreamy revolution of a slow merry-go-round. A 
 street-fair farther down made a brilliant alley of vari- 
 colored booths and contributed a blend of music to the 
 night — an oriental dance on a calliope, a melancholy 
 bugle in front of a freak show, a cheerful rendition of 
 "Back Home in Tennessee" on a hand-organ. 
 
THE JELLY-BEAN 7 
 
 The Jelly-bean stopped in a store and bought a collar. 
 Then he sauntered along toward Soda Sam's, where he 
 found the usual three or four cars of a summer evening 
 parked in front and the little darkies running back and 
 forth with sundaes and lemonades. 
 
 "HeUo, Jim." 
 
 It was a voice at his elbow — Joe Ewing sitting in 
 an automobile with Marylyn Wade. Nancy Lamar and 
 a strange man were in the back seat. 
 
 The Jelly-bean tipped his hat quickly. 
 
 "Hi, Ben — " then, after an almost imperceptible 
 paus^-"Howy'all?" 
 
 Passing, he ambled on toward the garage where he 
 had a room up-stairs. His " How y' all " had been said to 
 Nancy Lamar, to whom he had not spoken in fifteen years. 
 
 Nancy had a mouth like a remembered kiss and 
 shadowy eyes and blue-black hair inherited from her 
 mother who had been bom in Budapest. Jim passed 
 her often in the street, walking small-boy fashion with 
 her hands in her pockets and he knew that with her 
 inseparable Sally Carrol Hopper she had left a trail of 
 broken hearts from Atlanta to New Orleans. 
 
 For a few fleeting moments Jim wished he could 
 dance. Then he laughed and as he reached his door 
 began to sing softly to himself: 
 
 "Her Jelly Roll can twist your said. 
 Her eyes are big and brown, 
 She's the Queen of the Queens of the Jelly-beans — 
 My Jeanne of Jelly-bean Town." 
 
 II 
 
 At nine-thirty Jim and Clark met in front of Soda 
 Sam's and started for the Country Club in Clark's 
 Ford. 
 
8 TALES OF THE JAZZ AGE 
 
 "Jim," asked Clark casually, as they rattled through 
 the jasmine-scented night, "how do you keep alive ?" 
 
 The Jelly-bean paused, considered. 
 
 "Well," he said finally, "I got a room over Tilly's 
 garage. I help him some with the cars in the afternoon 
 an' he gives it to me free. Sometimes I drive one of 
 his taxies and pick up a little thataway. I get fed up 
 doin' that regiilar though." 
 
 "That all.?" 
 
 "Well, when there's a lot of work I help him by the 
 day — Saturdays usually — and then " there's one main 
 source of revenue I don't generally mention. Maybe 
 you don't recollect I'm about the champion crap-shooter 
 of this town. They make me shoot from a cup now 
 because once I get the feel of a pair of dice they just roll 
 for me." 
 
 Clark grinned appreciatively, 
 
 "I never could learn to set 'em so's they'd do what I 
 wanted. Wish you'd shoot with Nancy Lamar some 
 day and take all her money away from her. She will roll 
 'em with the boys and she loses more than her daddy can 
 afford to give her. I happen to know she sold a good 
 ring last month to pay a debt." 
 
 The Jelly-bean was non-committal. 
 
 "The white house on Elm Street still belong to you ?" 
 
 Jim shook his head. 
 
 "Sold. Got a pretty good price, seein' it wasn't 
 in a good part of town no more. Lawyer told me to 
 put it into Liberty bonds. But Aunt Mamie got so she 
 didn't have no sense, so it takes all the interest to keep 
 her up at Great Farms Sanitariiun. 
 
 "Hm." 
 
 " I got an old uncle up-state an' I reckin I kin go up 
 there if ever I get sure enough pore. Nice farm, but 
 not enough niggers around to work it. He's asked me 
 
THE JELLY-BEAN 9 
 
 to come up and help him, but I don't guess I'd take 
 
 much to it. Too doggone lonesome " He broke off 
 
 suddenly. "Clark, I want to tell you I'm much obliged 
 to you for askin' me out, but I'd be a lot happier if you'd 
 just stop the car right here an' let me walk back into 
 town." 
 
 "Shucks!" Clark grunted. "Do you good to step 
 out. You don't have to dance — ^just get out there on 
 the floor and shake." 
 
 "Hold on," exclaimed Jim uneasily, "Don't you go 
 leadin' me up to any girls and leavin' me there so I'll 
 have to dance with 'em." 
 
 Clark laughed. 
 
 "'Cause," continued Jim desperately, "without you 
 swear you won't do that I'm agoin' to get out right 
 here an' my good legs goin' carry me bade to Jackson 
 Street." 
 
 They agreed after some argument that Jim, unmo- 
 lested by females, was to view the spectacle from a 
 secluded settee in the corner where Clark would join 
 him whenever he wasn't dancing. 
 
 So ten o'clock foimd the Jelly-bean with his legs 
 crossed and his arms conservatively folded, trying to 
 look casually at home and politely xminterested in the 
 dancers. At heart he was torn between overwhelming 
 self-consciousness and an intense curiosity as to aU 
 that went on around him. He saw the girls emerge 
 one by one from the dressing-room, stretching and plum- 
 ing themselves like bright birds, smiling over their 
 powdered shoulders at the chaperones, casting a quick 
 glance around to take in the room and, simultaneously, 
 the room's reaction to their entrance — and then, again 
 like birJs, alighting and nestling in the sober arms of 
 their waiting escorts. Sally Carrol Hopper, blonde and 
 lazy-ejed, appeared dad in her favorite pink and blink- 
 
lo TALES OF THE JAZZ AGE 
 
 ing like an awakened rose. Marjorie Haight, Marylyn 
 Wade, Harriet Gary, all the giris he had seen loitering 
 down Jackson Street by noon, now, curied and bril- 
 Hantined and delicately tinted for the overhead lights, 
 were miraculously strange Dresden figures of pink and 
 blue and red and gold, fresh from the shop and not yet 
 fully dried. 
 
 He had been there half an hour, totally uncheered 
 by Glark's jovial visits which were each one accom- 
 panied by a "Hello, old boy, how you making out?" 
 and a slap at his knee. A dozen males had spoken to 
 him or stopped for a moment beside him, but he knew 
 that they were each one surprised at finding him there 
 and fancied that one or two were even shghtly resent- 
 ful. But at half past ten his embarrassment suddenly 
 left him and a pull of breathless interest took him com- 
 pletely out of himself — ^Nancy Lamar had come out of 
 the dressing-room. 
 
 She was dressed in yellow organdie, a costume of a 
 himdred cool corners, with three tiers of ruflSes and a 
 big bow in back until she shed black and yellow around 
 her in a sort of phosphorescent lustre. The Jelly-bean's 
 eyes opened wide and a limip arose in his throat. For 
 a minute she stood beside the door until her partner 
 hurried up. Jim recognized him as the stranger who 
 had been with her in Joe Ewing's car that afternoon. 
 \ saw her set her arms akimbo and say something in 
 J, low voice, and laugh. The man laughed too and Jim 
 experienced the quick pang of a weird new kind of pain. 
 Some ray had passed between the pair, a shaft of 
 beauty from that sun that had warmed him a moment 
 since. The JeUy-bean felt suddenly like a weed in a 
 shadow. 
 
 A minute later Clark approached him, bright-eyed 
 and glowing. i 
 
THE JELLY-BEAN ii 
 
 "Hi, old man," he cried with some lack of origiaality. 
 "How you making out ?" 
 
 Jim replied that he was making out as well as could 
 be expected. 
 
 "You come along with me," commanded Clark. 
 "I've got something that'll put an edge on the eve- 
 ning." 
 
 Jim followed him awkwardly across the floor and up 
 the stairs to the locker-room where Clark produced a 
 flask of nameless yellow liquid. 
 
 "Good old corn." 
 
 Ginger ale arrived on a tray. Such potent nectar 
 as "good old corn" needed some disgmse beyond seltzer. 
 
 "Say, boy," exclaimed Clark breathlessly, "doesn't 
 Nancy Lamar look beautiful ? " 
 
 Jim nodded. 
 
 "Mighty beautiful," he agreed. 
 
 "She's all dolled up to a fare-you-well to-night," 
 continued Clark. "Notice that fellow she's with ?" 
 
 "Big fella? White pants?" 
 
 "Yeah. Well, that's Ogden Merritt from Savannah. 
 Old man Merritt makes the Merritt safety razors. 
 This fella's crazy about her. Been chasing after her 
 all year. 
 
 "She's a wild baby," continued Clark, "but T '":- 
 her. So does everybody. But she sure d' do . ;\?;, 
 stunts. She usually gets out alive, but sh: , g'~ir s -.rf 
 all over her reputation from one thing or another she's 
 done." 
 
 "That so?" Jim passed over his glass. "That's 
 good com." 
 
 "Not so bad. Oh, she's a wild one. Shoots craps, 
 say, boy! And she do like her high-balls. Promised 
 I'd give her one later on." 
 
 "She in love with this— Merritt ? " 
 
12 TALES OF THE JAZZ AGE 
 
 "1 
 
 'Damned if I know. Seems like all the best girls 
 around here marry fellas and go off somewhere." 
 
 He poured himself one more drink and carefully 
 corked the bottle. 
 
 "Listen, Jim, I got to go dance and I'd be much 
 obliged if you just stick this corn right on your hip as 
 long as you're not dancing. If a man notices I've had 
 a drink he'll come up and ask me and before I know it 
 it's all gone and somebody else is having my good time." 
 
 So Nancy Lamar was going to marry. This toast of 
 a town was to become the private property of an indi- 
 vidual in white trousers — ^and all because white trousers' 
 father had made a better razor than his neighbor. As 
 they descended the stairs Jim found the idea inex- 
 plicably depressing. For the first time in his life 
 lie felt a vague and romantic yearning. A picture of 
 her began to form in his imagination — ^Nancy walking 
 boylike and debonnaire along the street, taking an 
 orange as tithe from a worshipful fruit-dealer, charg- 
 ing a dope on a mythical account at Soda Sam's, as- 
 sembling a convoy of beaux and then driving off in trium- 
 phal state for an afternoon of splashing and singing. 
 
 The Jelly-bean walked out on the porch to a deserted 
 comer, dark between the moon on the lawn and the 
 single lighted door of the ballroom. There he found a 
 chair and, lighting a cigarette, drifted into the thought- 
 less reverie that was his usual mood. Yet now it was a 
 reverie made sensuous by the night and by the hot smell 
 of damp powder puffs, tucked in the fronts of low dresses 
 and distilling a thousand rich scents to float out through 
 the open door. The music itself, blurred by a loud 
 trombone, became hot and shadowy, a languorous over- 
 tone to the scraping of many shoes and slippers. 
 
 Suddenly the square of yellow light that fell through 
 the door was obscured by a dark figure. A girl had 
 
THE JELLY-BEAN 13 
 
 come out of the dressing-room and was standing on the 
 porch not more than ten feet away. Jim heard a low- 
 breatted "doggone" and then she turned and saw him. 
 It was Nancy Lamar. 
 
 Jim rose to his feet. 
 
 "Howdy?" 
 
 "Hello — " she paused, hesitated and then approached. 
 "Oh, it's— Jim PoweU." 
 
 He bowed slightly, tried to think of a casual remark. 
 
 "Do you suppose," she began quickly, "I mean — do 
 you know anything about gum ? " 
 
 "What?" 
 
 "I've got gum on my shoe. Some utter ass left his 
 or her gimi on the floor and of course I stepped in it." 
 
 Jim blushed, inappropriately. 
 
 "Do you know how to get it off?" she demanded 
 petulantly. "I've tried a knife. I've tried every damn 
 thing in the dressing-room. I've tried soap and water — 
 and even perfume and I've ruined my powder-puff try- 
 ing to make it stick to that." 
 
 Jim considered the question in some agitation. 
 
 "Why — I think maybe gasolene " 
 
 The words had scarcely left his lips when she grasped 
 his hand and pulled him at a run off the low veranda, 
 over a flower bed and at a gallop toward a group of 
 cars parked in the moonlight by the first hole of the 
 golf course. 
 
 "Turn on the gasolene," she commanded breathlessly. 
 
 "What?" 
 
 "For the gum of course. I've got to get it off. I 
 can't dance with gum on." 
 
 Obediently Jim turned to the cars and began inspect- 
 ing them with a view to obtaining the desired solvent. 
 Had she demanded a cylinder he would have done his 
 best to wrench one out. 
 
14 TALES OF THE JAZZ AGE 
 
 "Here," he said after a moment's search. "Here's 
 one that's easy. Got a handkerchief ? " 
 
 "It's up-stairs wet. I used it for the soap and water." 
 
 Jim laboriously explored his pockets. 
 
 "Don't believe I got one either." 
 
 "Doggone it! Well, we can turn it on and let it 
 run on lie ground." 
 
 He turned the spout; a dripping began. 
 
 "More!" 
 
 He turned it on fuller. The dripping became a flow 
 and formed an oily pool that glistened brightly, reflect- 
 ing a dozen tremulous moons on its quivering bosom. 
 
 "Ah," she sighed contentedly, "let it all out. The 
 only thing to do is to wade in it." 
 
 In desperation he turned on the tap full and the pool 
 suddenly widened sending tiny rivers and trickles in 
 all directions. 
 
 "That's fine. That's something like." 
 
 Raising her skirts she stepped gracefully in. 
 
 "I know this'll take it off," she murmured. 
 
 Jim smiled. 
 
 "There's lots more cars." 
 
 She stepped daintily out of the gasolene and began 
 scraping her slippers, side and bottom, on the running- 
 board of the automobile. The Jelly-bear x..ained him- 
 self no longer. He bent double with explosive laugh- 
 ter and after a second she joined in. 
 
 "You're here with Clark Darrow, aren't you?" she 
 asked as they walked back toward the veranda. 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 "You know where he is now ?" 
 
 "Out dancin', I reckin." 
 
 "The deuce. He promised me a highball." 
 
 "Well," said Jim, "I guess that'll be all right. I got 
 his bottle right here in my pocket." 
 
THE JELLY-BEAN 15 
 
 She smiled at him radiantly. 
 
 "I guess maybe you'll need ginger ale though," 
 he added. 
 
 "Not me. Just the bottle." 
 
 " Sure enough ? " 
 
 She laughed scornfully. 
 
 "Try me. I can drink anything any man can. Let's 
 sit down." 
 
 She perched herself on the side of a table and he 
 dropped into one of the wicker chairs beside her. 
 Taking out the cork she held the flask to her lips and 
 took a long drink. He watched her fascinated. 
 
 "Like it.?" 
 
 She shook her head breathlessly. 
 
 "No, but I like the way it makes me feel. I thinlr 
 most people are that way." 
 
 Jim agreed. 
 
 "My daddy liked it too well. It got him." 
 
 "American men," said Nancy gravely, "don't know 
 how to drink." 
 
 "What ? " Jim was startled. 
 
 "In fact," she went on carelessly, "they don't know 
 how to do anything very well. The one thing I regret 
 in my life is that I wasn't born in England." 
 
 "In England?" 
 
 "Yes. It's the one regret of my life that I wasn't." 
 
 "Do you like it over there." 
 
 "Yes. Immensely. I've never been there in person, 
 but I've met a lot of Englishmen who were over here in 
 the army, Oxford and Cambridge men — you know, 
 that's like Sewanee and University of Georgia are here 
 — and of course I've read a lot of English novels." 
 
 Jim was interested, amazed. 
 
 "D' you ever hear of Lady Diana Manners?" she 
 asked earnestly. 
 
i6 TALES OF THE JAZZ AGE 
 
 No, Jim had not. 
 
 "Well, she's what I'd like to be. Dark, you know, 
 like me, and wild as sin. She's the girl who rode her 
 horse up the steps of some cathedral or church or some- 
 thing and all the novelists made their heroines do it 
 afterwards." 
 
 Jim nodded politely. He was out of his depths. 
 
 "Pass the botde," suggested Nancy. "I'm going to 
 take another little one. A little drink wouldn't hurt a 
 baby. 
 
 "You see," she continued, again breathless after a 
 draught. " People over there have style. Nobody has 
 style here. I mean the boys here aren't really worth 
 dressing up for or doing sensational things for. Don't 
 you know ?" 
 
 "I suppose so — I mean I suppose not," murmured 
 Jim. 
 
 "And I'd like to do 'em an' alL I'm really the only 
 girl in town that has style." 
 
 She stretched out her arms and yawned pleasantly. 
 
 "Pretty evening." 
 
 "Sure is," agreed Jim. 
 
 "Like to have boat," she suggested dreamily. "Like 
 to sail out on a silver lake, say the Thames, for instance. 
 Have champagne and caviare sandwiches along. Have 
 about eight people. And one of the men would jump 
 overboard to amuse the party and get drowned like a 
 man did with Lady Diana Manners once." 
 
 "Did he do it to please her ?" 
 
 "Didn't mean drown himself to please her. He just 
 meant to jump overboard and make everybody laugh." 
 
 "I reckin they just died laughin' when he drowned." 
 
 "Oh, I suppose they laughed a little," she admitted. 
 "I imagine she did, anyTvay. She's pretty hard, I 
 guess — like I am." 
 
THE JELLY-BEAN 17 
 
 "You hard?" 
 
 "Like nails." She yawned again and added, "Give' 
 me a little more from that bottle." 
 
 Jim hesitated but she held out her hand defiantly. 
 
 "Don't treat me like a girl," she warned him. "I'm 
 not like any girl you ever saw." She considered. "Still, 
 perhaps you're right. You got— you got old head on 
 young shoulders." 
 
 She jumped to her feet and moved toward the door. 
 The Jelly-bean rose also. 
 
 "Good-bye," she said politely, "good-bye. Thanks, 
 Jelly-bean." 
 
 Then she stepped inside and left him wide-eyed upon 
 the porch. 
 
 m 
 
 At twelve o'clock a procession of cloaks issued single 
 file from the women's dressing-room and, each one pair- 
 ing with a coated beau like dancers meeting in a cotil- 
 lion figure, drifted through the door with sleepy happy 
 laughter — through the door into the dark where autos 
 backed and snorted and parties called to one another 
 and gathered around the water-cooler. 
 
 Jim, sitting in his comer, rose to look for Clark. 
 They had met at eleven; then Clark had gone in to 
 dance. So, seeking him, Jim wandered into the soft- 
 drink stand that had once been a bar. The room was 
 deserted except for a sleepy negro dozing behind the 
 counter and two boys lazily fingering a pair of dice at 
 one of the tables. Jim was about to leave when he saw 
 Clark coming in. At the same moment Clark looked up. 
 
 "Hi, Jim! " he commanded. "C mon over and help us 
 with this bottle. I guess there's not much left, but 
 there's one all around." 
 
 Nancy, the man from Savannah, Maryl3m Wade, and 
 
i8 TALES OF THE JAZZ AGE 
 
 Joe Ewing were lolling and laughing in the doorway. 
 Nancy caught Jim's eye and winked at him humorously. 
 
 They drifted over to a table and arranging themselves 
 around it waited for the waiter to bring ginger ale. 
 Jim, faintly ill at ease, turned his eyes on Nancy, who 
 had drifted into a nickel crap game with the two boys 
 at the next table. 
 
 "Bring them over here," suggested Clark. 
 
 Joe looked around. 
 
 "We don't want to draw a crowd. It's against club 
 rules." 
 
 "Nobody's around," insisted Clark, "except Mr. Tay- 
 lor. He's walking up and down like a wild-man trying 
 to find out who let all the gasolene out of his car." 
 
 There was a general laugh. 
 
 "I bet a million Nancy got something on her shoe 
 again. You can't park when she's around." 
 
 "O Nancy, Mr. Taylor's looking for you !" 
 
 Nancy's cheeks were glowing with excitement over 
 the game. "I haven't seen his silly little flivver in 
 two weeks." 
 
 Jim felt a sudden silence. He turned and saw an 
 individual of uncertain age standing in the doorway. 
 
 Clark's voice punctuated the embarrassment. 
 
 "Won't you join us, Mr. Taylor?" 
 
 "Thanks." 
 
 Mr. Taylor spread his unwelcome presence over a 
 chair. "Have to, I guess. I'm waiting till they dig 
 me up some gasolene. Somebody got funny with my 
 car." 
 
 His eyes narrowed and he looked quickly from one 
 to the other. Jim wondered what he had heard from 
 the doorway — tried to remember what had been said. 
 
 "I'm right to-night," Nancy sang out, "and my four 
 bits is in the ring." 
 
THE JELLY-BEAN 19 
 
 "Faded!" snapped Taylor suddenly. 
 
 "Why, Mr. Taylor, I didn't know you shot craps!" 
 Nancy was overjoyed to find that he had seated himself 
 and instantly covered her bet. They had openly dis- 
 liked each other since the night she had definitely dis- 
 couraged a series of rather pointed advances. 
 
 "All right, babies, do it for your mamma. Just one 
 little seven." Nancy was cooing to the dice. She 
 rattled them with a brave underhand flourish, and 
 rolled them out on the table. 
 
 "Ah-h! I suspected it. And now again with the 
 dollar up." 
 
 Five passes to her credit found Taylor a bad 
 loser. She was making it personal, and after each suc- 
 cess Jim watched triumph flutter across her face. She 
 was doubling with each throw — such luck could scarcely 
 last. 
 
 "Better go easy," he cautioned her timidly. 
 
 "Ah, but watch this one," she whispered. It was 
 eight on the dice and she called her number. 
 
 "Little Ada, this time we're going South." 
 
 Ada from Decatur rolled over the table. Nancy 
 was flushed and half-hysterical, but her luck was hold- 
 ing. She drove the pot up and up, refusing to drag. 
 Taylor was drumming with his fingers on the table, but 
 he was in to stay. 
 
 Then Nancy tried for a ten and lost the dice. Tay- 
 lor seized them avidly. He shot in silence, and in the 
 hush of excitement the clatter of one pass after another 
 on the table was the only sound. 
 
 Now Nancy had the dice again, but her luck had 
 broken. An hour passed. Back and forth it went. 
 Taylor had been at it again — and again and again. 
 They were even at last — ^Nancy lost her ultimate five 
 dollars. 
 
20 TALES OF THE JAZZ AGE 
 
 "Will you take my check," she said quickly, "for 
 fifty, and we'll shoot it all?" Her voice was a little 
 unsteady and her hand shook as she reached to the 
 money. 
 
 Clark exchanged an imcertain but alarmed glance 
 with Joe Ewing. Taylor shot again. He had Nancy's 
 check. 
 
 "How 'bout another?" she said wildly. "Jes' any 
 bank'U do — ^money everjrwhere as a matter of fact." 
 
 Jim imderstood — the "good old com" he had given 
 her — the "good old com" she had taken since. He 
 wished he dared interfere — ^a girl of that age and posi- 
 tion would hardly have two bank accounts. When the 
 clock stmck two he contained himself no longer. 
 
 "May I— can't you let me roll 'em for you ?" he sug- 
 gested, his low, lazy voice a little strained. 
 
 Suddenly sleepy and listless, Nancy flung the dice 
 down before him. 
 
 "All right — old boy ! As Lady Diana Manners says, 
 'Shoot 'em, Jelly-bean' — My luck's gone." 
 
 "Mr. Taylor," said Jim, carelessly, "we'll shoot for 
 one of those there checks against the cash." 
 
 Half an hour later Nancy swayed forward and clapped 
 him on the back. 
 
 " Stole my luck, you did." She was nodding her head 
 sagely. 
 
 Jim swept up the last check and putting it with the 
 others tore them into confetti and scattered them on 
 the floor. Someone started singing, and Nancy kicking 
 her chair backward rose to her feet. 
 
 "Ladies and gentlemen," she announced. "Ladies 
 — that's you Marylyn. I want to tell the world that 
 Mr. Jim Powell, who is a well-known Jelly-bean of this 
 city, is an exception to a great rule — 'lucky in dice — 
 unlucky in love.' He's lucky in dice, and as matter 
 
THE JELLY-BEAN 21 
 
 fact I — I love him. Ladies and gentlemen, Nancy La- 
 mar, famous dark-haired beauty often featured in the 
 Herald as one th' most popular members of younger set 
 as other girls are often featured in this particular case. 
 Wish to annoimce — wish to announce, an3rway, Gentle- 
 men " She tipped suddenly. Clark caught her and 
 
 restored her balance. 
 
 "My error," she laughed, "she stoops to — stoops to — 
 
 anyways We'U drink to Jelly-bean . . . Mr. Jim 
 
 PoweU, King of the Jelly-beans." 
 
 And a few minutes later as Jim waited hat in hand 
 for Clark in the darkness of that same comer of the 
 porch where she had come searching for gasolene, she 
 appeared suddenly beside him. 
 
 "JeUy-bean," she said, "are you here, Jelly-bean? 
 I think — " and her slight unsteadiness seemed part 
 of an enchanted dream — "I think you deserve one of my 
 sweetest kisses for that. Jelly-bean." 
 
 For an instant her arms were around his neck — her 
 lips were pressed to his. 
 
 "I'm a wild part of the world, Jelly-bean, but you did 
 me a good turn." 
 
 Then she was gone, down the porch, over the cricket- 
 loud lawn. Jim saw Merritt come out the front door 
 and say something to her angrily — saw her laugh and, 
 turning away, walk with averted eyes to his car. 
 Marylyn and Joe followed, singing a drowsy song about 
 a Jazz baby. 
 
 Clark came out and joined Jim on the steps. "All 
 pretty ht, I guess," he yawned. "Merritt's in a mean 
 mood. He's certainly off Nancy." 
 
 Over east along the golf course a faint rug of gray 
 spread itself across the feet of the night. The party in 
 the car began to chant a chorus as the engine warmed up. 
 
 "Good-night everybody," called Clark. 
 
22 TALES OF THE JAZZ AGE 
 
 "Good-night, Qark." 
 
 "Good-night." 
 
 There was a pause, and then a soft, happy voice 
 added, 
 
 " Good-night, Jelly-bean." 
 
 The car drove off to a burst of singing. A rooster on 
 a farm across the way took up a solitary mournful crow, 
 and behind them a last negro waiter turned out the 
 porch light. Jim and Clark strolled over toward the 
 Ford, their shoes crunching raucously on the gravel 
 drive. 
 
 "Oh boy!" sighed Clark softly, "how you can set 
 those dice ! " 
 
 It was still too dark for him to see the flush on Jim's 
 thin cheeks — or to know that it was a flush of unfamiliar 
 shame. 
 
 IV 
 
 Over Tilly's garage a bleak room echoed all day to 
 the rumble and snorting down-stairs and the singing of 
 the negro washers as they turned the hose on the cars 
 outside. It was a cheerless square of a room, punctuated 
 with a bed and a battered table on which lay half a 
 dozen books — ^Joe Miller's " Slow Train thru Arkansas," 
 "Lucille," in an old edition very much annotated in an 
 old-fashioned hand; "TheEyesof the World," by Harold 
 Bell Wright, and an ancient prayer-book of the Church 
 of England with the name Alice Powell and the date 183 1 
 written on the fly-leaf. 
 
 The East, gray when the Jelly-bean entered the garage, 
 became a rich and vivid blue as he turned on his soli- 
 tary electric light. He snapped it out again, and going 
 to the window rested his elbows on the sill and stared 
 into the deepening morning. With the awakening of his 
 
THE JELLY-BEAN 23 
 
 emotions, his first perception was a sense of futility, a dull 
 ache at the utter grayness of his life. A wall had sprung 
 up suddenly around him hedging him in, a wall as definite 
 and tangible as the white wall of his bare room. And 
 with his perception of this waU all that had been the 
 romance of his existence, the casualness, the light- 
 hearted improvidence, the miraculous open-handedness 
 of life faded out. The Jelly-bean strolling up Jackson 
 Street humming a lazy song, known at every shop and 
 street stand, cropful of easy greeting and local wit, 
 sad sometimes for only the sake of sadness and the 
 flight of time — that Jelly-bean was suddenly vanished. 
 The very name was a reproach, a triviality. With a 
 flood of insight he knew that Merritt must despise him, 
 that even Nancy's kiss in the dawn would have awak- 
 ened not jealousy but only a contempt for Nancy's so 
 lowering herself. And on his part the Jelly-bean had 
 used for her a dingy subterfuge learned from the garage. 
 He had been her moral laundry; the stains were his. 
 
 As the gray became blue, brightened and filled the 
 room, he crossed to his bed and threw himself down on 
 it, gripping the edges fiercely. 
 
 "I love her," he cried aloud, "God!" 
 
 As he said this something gave way within him like 
 a lump melting in his throat. The air cleared and be- 
 came radiant with dawn, and turning over on his face 
 he began to sob dully into the pillow. 
 
 In the sunshine of three o'clock Clark Darrow chug- 
 ging painfully along Jackson Street was hailed by the 
 Jelly-bean, who stood on the curb with his fingers in 
 his vest pockets. 
 
 "Hi!" called Clark, bringing his Ford to an aston- 
 ishing stop alongside. "Just get up ?" 
 
 The Jelly-bean shook his head. 
 
24 TALES OF THE JAZZ AGE 
 
 "Never did go to bed. Felt sorta restless, so I took a 
 long walk this morning out in the country. Just got 
 into town this minute." 
 
 "Should think you would feel restless. I been feel- 
 ing thataway all day " 
 
 "I'm thinkin' of leavin' town," continued the Jelly- 
 bean, absorbed by his own thoughts. "Been thinkin' 
 of goin' up on the farm, and takin' a little that work off 
 Uncle Dun. Reckin I been bummin' too long." 
 
 Clark was silent and the Jelly-bean continued: 
 
 "I reckin maybe after Aunt Mamie dies I could sink 
 that money of mine in the farm and make somethin' 
 out of it. All my people originally came from that 
 part up there. Had a big place." 
 
 Clark looked at him curiously. 
 
 " That's funny," he said. " This— this sort of affected 
 me the same way." 
 
 The JeUy-bean hesitated. 
 
 "I don't know," he began slowly, "somethin' about — 
 about that girl last night talkin' about a lady named 
 Diana Manners — an English lady, sorta got me think- 
 in' ! " He drew himself up and looked oddly at Clark, 
 "I had a family once," he said defiantly. 
 
 Clark nodded. 
 
 "I know." 
 
 "And I'm the last of 'em," continued the Jelly-bean, 
 his voice rising slightly, "and I ain't worth shucks. 
 Name they call me by means jelly — ^weak and wobbly 
 like. People who weren't nothin' when my folks was 
 a lot turn up their noses when they pass me on the 
 street." 
 
 Again Clark was silent. 
 
 "So I'm through. I'm goin' to-day. And when I 
 come back to this town it's going to be like a gentle- 
 man." 
 
THE JELLY-BEAN 25 
 
 Clark took out his handkerchief and wiped his damp 
 brow. 
 
 "Reckon you're n«it the only one it shook up," he 
 admitted gloomily. "lAll this thing of girls going round 
 like they do is going to stop right quick. Too bad, 
 too, but everybody'll h.-ve to see it thataway." 
 
 "Do you mean," demanded Jim in surprise, "that 
 all that's leaked out?" 
 
 "Leaked out? How oir earth could they keep it 
 secret. It'll be announced in the papers to-night. 
 Doctor Lamar's got to save his name somehow." 
 
 Jim put his hands on the sides of the car and tightened 
 his long fingers on the metal. 
 
 "Do you mean Taylor investigated those checks?" 
 
 It was Clark's turn to be surprised. 
 
 "Haven't you heard what happened?" 
 
 Jim's startled eyes were answer enough. 
 
 "Why," announced Clark dramatically, "those four 
 got another bottle of corn, got tight and decided to shock 
 the town — so Nancy and that fella Merritt were married 
 in Rockville at seven o'clock this morning." 
 
 A tiny indentation appeared in the metal under the 
 JeUy-bean's fingers. 
 
 "Married?" 
 
 "Sure enough. Nancy sobered up and rushed back 
 into town, crying and frightened to death — claimed 
 it'd all been a mistake. First Doctor Lamar went 
 wild and was going to kill Merritt, but finally they got 
 it patched up some way, and Nancy and Merritt went to 
 Savannah on the two-thirty train." 
 
 Jim closed his eyes and with an effort overcame a 
 sudden sickness. 
 
 "It's too bad," said Clark philosophically. "I don't 
 mean the wedding — reckon that's all right, though I 
 don't guess Nancy cared a dam about him. But it's 
 
26 TALES OF THE JAZZ AGE 
 
 a crime for a nice girl like that to hurt her family that 
 way." 
 
 The Jelly-bean let go the car anc- turned away. Again 
 something was going on inside 'aim, some inexplicable 
 but almost, chemical change. 
 
 "Where you going?" asked Clark. 
 
 The Jelly-bean turned and looked dully back over 
 his shoulder. 
 
 " Got to go," he muttered. "Been up too long; feelin' 
 right sick." 
 
 "Oh." 
 
 The street was hot at three and hotter still at four, 
 the April dust seeming to enmesh the sun and give it 
 forth again as a world-old joke forever played on an 
 eternity of afternoons. But at half past four a first 
 layer of quiet fell and the shades lengthened under the 
 awnings and heavy foliaged trees. In this heat nothing 
 mattered. All life was weather, a waiting through the 
 hot where events had no significance for the cool that 
 was soft and caressing Hke a woman's hand on a tired 
 forehead. Down in Georgia there is a feeling — perhaps 
 inarticulate — that this is the greatest wisdom of the 
 South — so after a while the Jelly-bean turned into a pool- 
 hall on Jackson Street where he was sure to find a con- 
 genial crowd who would make all the old jokes — the 
 ones he knew. 
 
THE CAMEL'S BACK 
 
 The glazed eye of the tired reader resting for a second 
 on the above title will presume it to be merely meta- 
 phorical. Stories about the cup and the lip and the 
 bad penny and the new broom rarely have anything to 
 do with cups or lips or pennies or brooms. This story 
 is the exception. It has to do with a material, visible and 
 large-as-life camel's back. 
 
 Starting from the neck we shall work toward the tail. 
 I want you to meet Mr. Perry Parkhurst, twenty-eight, 
 lawyer, native of Toledo. Perry has nice teeth, a Har- 
 vard diploma, parts his hair in the middle. You have 
 met him before — ^in Cleveland, Portland, St. Paul, Indi- 
 anapolis, Kansas City, and so forth. Baker Brothers, 
 New York, pause on their semi-annual trip through the 
 West to clothe him; Montmorency & Co. dispatch a 
 young man post-haste every three months to see that he 
 has the correct number of little punctures on his shoes. 
 He has a domestic roadster now, will have a French 
 roadster if he lives long enough, and doubtless a Chinese 
 tank if it comes into fashion. He looks like the ad- 
 vertisement of the young man rubbing his sunset- 
 colored chest with liniment and goes East every other 
 year to his class reunion. 
 
 I want you to meet his Love. Her name is Betty Me- 
 dill, and she would take well in the movies. Her father 
 gives her three hundred a month to dress on, and she has 
 tawny eyes and hair and feather fans of five colors. I 
 shall also introduce her father, Cyrus Medill. Though 
 he is to all appearances flesh and blood, he is, strange to 
 say, commonly known in Toledo as the Aluminum Man. 
 
 27 
 
28 TALES OF THE JAZZ AGE 
 
 But when he sits in his club window with two or three 
 Iron Men, and the White Pine Man, and the Brass Man, 
 they look very much as you and I do, only more so, if 
 you know what I mean. 
 
 Now during the Christmas holidays of 1919 there took 
 place in Toledo, counting only the people with the ital- 
 icized the, forty-one dinner parties, sixteen dances, six 
 luncheons, male and female, twelve teas, four stag din- 
 ners, two weddings, and thirteen bridge parties. It 
 was the cumulative effect of all this that moved Perry 
 Parkhurst on the twenty-ninth day of December to a 
 decision. 
 
 This MedQl girl would marry him and she wouldn't 
 marry him. She was having such a good time that she 
 hated to take such a definite step. Meanwhile, their 
 secret engagement had got so long that it seemed as if 
 any day it might break off of its own weight. A little 
 man named Warburton, who knew it all, persuaded 
 Perry to superman her, to get a marriage license and go 
 up to the Medill house and tell her she'd have to marry 
 him at once or call it off forever. So he presented him- 
 self, his heart, his license, and his ultimatum, and within 
 five minutes they were in the midst of a violent quarrel, 
 a burst of sporadic open fighting such as occurs near the 
 end of aU long wars and engagements. It brought about 
 one of those ghastly lapses in which two people who are 
 in love puU up sharp, look at each other coolly and think 
 it's all been a mistake. Afterward they usually kiss 
 wholesomely and assure the other person it was all their 
 fault. Say it all was my fault ! Say it was ! I want to 
 hear you say it ! 
 
 But while reconciliation was trembling in the air, 
 while each was, in a measure, stalling it off, so that they 
 might the more voluptuously and sentimentally enjoy 
 it when it came, they were permanently interrupted by 
 
THE CAMEL'S BACK 29 
 
 a twenty-minute phone call for Betty from a garrulous 
 aunt. At the end of eighteen minutes Perry Parkhurst, 
 urged on by pride and suspicion and injured dignity, 
 put on his long fur coat, picked up his Hght brown soft 
 hat, and stalked out the door. 
 
 "It's all over," he muttered brokenly as he tried to 
 jam his car into first. " It's all over^f I have to choke 
 you for an hour, damn you!" This last to the car, 
 which had been standing some time and was quite cold. 
 
 He drove downtown — that is, he got into a snow rut 
 that led him downtown. He sat slouched down very 
 low in his seat, much too dispirited to care where he 
 went. 
 
 In front of the Clarendon Hotel he was hailed from 
 the sidewalk by a bad man named Baily, who had big 
 teeth and lived at the hotel and had never been in 
 love. 
 
 "Perry," said the bad man softly when the roadster 
 drew up beside him at the curb, "I've got six quarts of 
 the doggonedest stUl champagne you ever tasted. A 
 third of it's yours. Perry, if you'll come up-stairs and help 
 Martin Macy and me drink it." 
 
 "Baily," said Perry tensely, "I'll drink your cham- 
 pagne. I'U drink every drop of it. I don't care if it 
 kills me." 
 
 " Shut up, you nut ! " said the bad man gently. " They 
 don't put wood alcohol in champagne. This is the stuff 
 that proves the world is more than six thousand years 
 old. It's so ancient that the cork is petrified. You 
 have to puU it with a stone drill." 
 
 "Take me up-stairs," said Perry moodily. "If that 
 cork sees my heart it'U fall out from pure mortifica- 
 tion." 
 
 The room up-stairs was full of those innocent hotel 
 pictures of little girls eating apples and sitting in swings 
 
30 TALES OF THE JAZZ AGE 
 
 and talking to dogs. The other decorations were neck- 
 ties and a pink man reading a pink paper devoted to 
 ladies in pink tights. 
 
 "When you have to go into the highways and by- 
 ways — -" said the pink man, looking reproachfully at 
 Baily and Perry. 
 
 "Hello, Martin Macy," said Perry shortly, " where 's 
 this stone-age champagne ? " 
 
 "What's the rush? This isn't an operation, imder- 
 stand. This is a party." 
 
 Perry sat down dully and looked disapprovingly at 
 all the neckties. 
 
 Baily leisurely opened the door of a wardrobe and 
 brought out six handsome bottles. 
 
 "Take off that darn fur coat!" said Martin Macy to 
 Perry. "Or maybe you'd like to have us open all the 
 windows." 
 
 "Give me champagne," said Perry. 
 
 "Going to the Townsends' circus ball to-night?" 
 
 "Am not!" 
 
 "'Vited?" 
 
 "Uh-huh." 
 
 "Why not go?" 
 
 "Oh, I'm sick of parties," exclaimed Perry. "I'm 
 sick of 'em. I've been to so many that I'm sick of 
 'em." 
 
 "Maybe you're going to the Howard Tates' party?" 
 
 "No, I tell you; I'm sick of 'em." 
 
 "Well," said Macy consolingly, "the Tates' is just for 
 college kids anyways." 
 
 "I tell you " 
 
 "I thought you'd be going to one of 'em anj^ways. I 
 see by the papers you haven't missed a one this Christ- 
 mas." 
 
 "Hm," grunted Perry morosely. 
 
THE CAMEL'S BACK 31 
 
 He would never go to any more parties. Classical 
 phrases played in his mind — that side of his life was 
 closed, closed. Now when a man says "closed, closed" 
 like that, you can be pretty sure that some woman has 
 double-closed him, so to speak. Perry was also think- 
 ing that other classical thought, about how cowardly 
 suicide is. A noble thought that one — warm and in- 
 spiring. Think of all the fine men we should lose if 
 suicide were not so cowardly ! 
 
 An hour later was six o'clock, and Perry had lost all 
 resemblance to the young man in the liniment adver- 
 tisement. He looked like a rough draft for a riotous 
 cartoon. They were singing — an impromptu song of 
 Baily's improvisation: 
 
 "One Lump Perry, the parlor snake, 
 
 Famous through the city for the way he drinks his tea; 
 Plays with it, toys with it, 
 Makes no noise with it, 
 Balanced on a napkin on his well-trained knee " 
 
 "Trouble is," said Perry, who had just banged his 
 hair with Baily's comb and was tying an orange tie 
 round it to get the effect of Julius Cassar, "that you 
 fellas can't sing worth a damn. Soon's I leave th' air 
 and start singin' tenor you start singin' tenor too." 
 
 "'M a natural tenor," said Macy gravely. "Voice 
 lacks cultivation, tha's aU. Gotta natural voice, m'aunt 
 used say. Naturally good singer." 
 
 "Singers, singers, all good singers," remarked Baily, 
 who was at the telephone. "No, not the cabaret; I 
 want night egg. I mean some dog-gone clerk 'at's got 
 food — food ! I want " 
 
 "Julius Caesar," announced Perry, turning round from 
 the mirror. "Man of iron will and stern 'termination." 
 
 "Shut up!" yelled Baily. "Say, iss Mr. Baily. 
 
32 TALES OF THE JAZZ AGE 
 
 Sen' up enormous supper. Use y'own judgment. Right 
 away." 
 
 He connected the receiver and the hook with some 
 difficulty, and then with his lips closed and an expres- 
 sion of solemn intensity in his eyes went to the lower 
 drawer of his dresser and pulled it open. 
 
 "Lookit!" he commanded. In his hands he held a 
 truncated garment of pink gingham. 
 
 "Pants," he exclaimed gravely. "Lookit!" 
 
 This was a pink blouse, a red tie, and a Buster Brown 
 collar. 
 
 "Lookit!" he repeated. "Costume for the Town- 
 sends' circus baU. I'm li'l' boy carries water for the 
 elephants." 
 
 Perry was impressed in spite of himself. 
 
 "I'm going to be Julius Cassar," he annoimced after 
 a moment of concentration. 
 
 "Thought you weren't going!" said Macy. 
 
 "Me? Sure, I'm goin'. Never miss a party. Good 
 for the nerves — ^hke celery." 
 
 "Caesar!" scoffed Baily. "Can't be Caesar! He is 
 not about a circus. Caesar's Shakespeare. Go as a 
 clown." 
 
 Perry shook his head. 
 
 "Nope; Cassar." 
 
 "Cffisar?" 
 
 "Sure. Chariot." 
 
 Light dawned on Baily. 
 
 "That's right. Good idea." 
 
 Perry looked round the room searchingly. 
 
 "You lend me a bathrobe and this tie," he said finally. 
 
 Baily considered. 
 
 "No good." 
 
 "Sure, tha's all I need. Caesar was a savage. They 
 can't kick if I come as Caesar, if he was a savage." 
 
THE CAMEL'S BACK 33 
 
 "No," said BaHy, shaking his head slowly. "Get a 
 costume over at a costumer's. Over at Nolak's." 
 
 "Closed up." 
 
 "Find out." 
 
 After a puzzling five minutes at the phone a small, 
 weary voice managed to convince Perry that it was Mr. 
 Nolak speaking, and that they would remain open until 
 eight because of the Townsends' ball. Thus assured, 
 Perry ate a great amoimt of filet mignon and drank his 
 third of the last bottle of champagne. At eight-fifteen 
 the man in the tall hat who stands in front of the Clar- 
 endon found him trying to start his roadster. 
 
 "Froze up," said Perry wisely. "The cold froze it. 
 The cold air." 
 
 "Froze, eh?" 
 
 "Yes. Cold air froze it." 
 
 "Can't start it?" 
 
 "Nope. Let it stand here till summer. One those 
 hot ole August days'll thaw it out awright." 
 
 "Coin' let it stand?" 
 
 "Sure. Let 'er stand. Take a hot thief to steal it. 
 Gerome taxi." 
 
 The man in the tall hat summoned a taxi. 
 
 "Where to, mister?" 
 
 "Go to Nolak's — costmne fella." 
 
 n 
 
 Mrs. Nolak was short and ineffectual looking, and on 
 the cessation of the world war had belonged for a while 
 to one of the new nationalities. Owing to xmsettled 
 European conditions she had never since been quite 
 sure what she was. The shop in which she and her 
 husband performed their daily stint was dim and ghostly, 
 and peopled with suits of armor and Chinese mandarins, 
 
34 TALES OF THE JAZZ AGE 
 
 and enormous papier-mache birds suspended from the 
 ceiling. In a vague background many rows of masks 
 glared eyelessly at the visitor, and there were glass 
 cases full of crowns and scepters, and jewels and enor- 
 mous stomachers, and paints, and crape hair, and wigs of 
 all colors. 
 
 When Perry ambled into the shop Mrs. Nolak was 
 folding up the last troubles of a strenuous day, so she 
 thought, in a drawer full of pink silk stockings. 
 
 "Something for you?" she queried pessimistically. 
 
 "Want costume of Julius Hur, the charioteer." 
 
 Mrs. Nolak was sorry, but every stitch of charioteer 
 had been rented long ago. Was it for the Townsends' 
 circus ball ? 
 
 It was. 
 
 "Sorry," she said, "but I don't think there's anything 
 left that's really circus." 
 
 This was an obstacle. 
 
 "Hm," said Perry. An idea struck him suddenly. 
 "If you've got a piece of canvas I could go's a tent." 
 
 "Sorry, but we haven't anything like that. A hard- 
 ware store is where you'd have to go to. We have some 
 very nice Confederate soldiers." 
 
 "No. No soldiers." 
 
 "And I have a very handsome king." 
 
 He shook his head. 
 
 "Several of the gentlemen," she continued hopefully, 
 "are wearing stovepipe hats and swallow-tail coats and 
 going as ringmasters — but we're all out of tall hats. I 
 can let you have some crape hair for a mustache." 
 
 "Want somep'n 'stinctive." 
 
 "Something — let's see. Well, we have a lion's head, 
 and a goose, and a camel " 
 
 "Camel?" The idea seized Perry's imagination, 
 gripped it fiercely. 
 
THE CAMEL'S BACK 35 
 
 "Yes, but it needs two people." 
 
 " Camel. That's the idea. Lemme see it." 
 
 The camel was produced from his resting place on a 
 top shelf. At first glance he appeared to consist en- 
 tirely of a very gaunt, cadaverous head and a sizable 
 hump, but on being spread out he was found to possess 
 a dark brown, unwholesome-looking body made of thick, 
 cottony cloth. 
 
 "You see it takes two people," explained Mrs. Nolak, 
 holding the camel in frank admiration. "If you have 
 a friend he could be part of it. You see there's sorta 
 pants for two people. One pair is for the fella in front, 
 and the other pair for the fella in back. The fella in 
 front does the lookin' out through these here eyes, an' 
 the fella in back he's just gotta stoop over an' folia the 
 front feUa round." 
 
 "Put it on," commanded Perry. 
 
 Obediently Mrs. Nolak put her tabby-cat face inside 
 the camel's head and turned it from side to side fero- 
 ciously. 
 
 Perry was fascinated. 
 
 "What noise does a camel make ?" 
 
 "What?" asked Mrs. Nolak as her face emerged, 
 somewhat smudgy. "Oh, what noise? Why, he sorta 
 brays." 
 
 "Lemme see it in a mirror." 
 
 Before a wide mirror Perry tried on the head and 
 turned from side to side appraisingly. In the dim light 
 the effect was distinctly pleasing. The camel's face 
 was a study in pessimism, decorated with numerous 
 abrasions, and it must be admitted that his coat was in 
 that state of general negligence peculiar to camels — ^in 
 fact, he needed to be cleaned and pressed — but distinc- 
 tive he certainly was. He was majestic. He would 
 have attracted attention in any gathering, if only by his 
 
36 TALES OF THE JAZZ AGE 
 
 melancholy cast of feature and the look of hiinger lurking 
 round his shadowy eyes. 
 
 "You see you have to have two people," said Mrs. 
 Nolak again. 
 
 Perry tentatively gathered up the body and legs and 
 wrapped them about him, tying the hind legs as a girdle 
 round his waist. The effect on the whole was bad. It 
 was even irreverent — ^like one of those mediaeval pictures 
 of a monk changed into a beast by the ministrations of 
 Satan. At the very best the ensemble resembled a 
 humpbacked cow sitting on her haunches among blankets. 
 
 "Don't look like anything at aU," objected Perry 
 gloomily. 
 
 "No," said Mrs. Nolak; "you see you got to have 
 two people." 
 
 A solution flashed upon Perry. 
 
 "You got a date to-night?" 
 
 "Oh, I couldn't possibly " 
 
 "Oh, come on," said Perry encouragingly. "Sure 
 you can ! Here ! Be good sport, and climb into these 
 hind legs." 
 
 With difficulty he located them, and extended their 
 yawning depths ingratiatingly. But Mrs. Nolak seemed 
 loath. She backed perversely away. 
 
 "Oh, no " 
 
 "Cm on ! You can be the front if you want to. Or 
 we'll flip a coin." 
 
 "Oh, no " 
 
 "Make it worth your while." 
 
 Mrs. Nolak set her lips firmly together. 
 
 "Now you just stop!" she said with no cojoiess im- 
 plied. "None of the gentlemen ever acted up this 
 way before. My husband " 
 
 "You got a husband?" demanded Perry. "Where 
 is he?" 
 
THE CAMEL'S BACK 37 
 
 "He's home." 
 
 "Wha's telephone number?" 
 
 After considerable parley he obtained the telephone 
 number pertaining to the Nolak penates and got into 
 communication with that small, weary voice he had 
 heard once before that day. But Mr. Nolak, though 
 taken- off his guard and somewhat confused by Perry's 
 briUiant flow of logic, stuck staunchly to his point. He 
 refused firmly, but with dignity, to help out Mr. Park- 
 hurst in the capacity of back part of a camel. 
 
 Having rung off, or rather having been rung off on, 
 Perry sat down on a three-legged stool to think it over. 
 He named over to himself those friends on whom he 
 might call, and then his mind paused as Betty Medill's 
 name hazily and sorrowfully occurred to him. He had 
 a sentimental thought. He would ask her. Their love 
 affair was over, but she could not refuse this last re- 
 quest. Surely it was not much to ask — to help him 
 keep up his end of social obligation for one short night. 
 And if she insisted, she could be the front part of the 
 camel and he would go as the back. His magnanimity 
 pleased him. His mind even turned to rosy-colored 
 dreams of a tender reconciliation inside the camel — 
 there hidden away from all the world. . . . 
 
 "Now you'd better decide right off." 
 
 The bourgeois voice of Mrs. Nolak broke in upon his 
 mellow fancies and roused him to action. He went to 
 the phone and called up the Medill house. Miss Betty 
 was out; had gone out to dinner. 
 
 Then, when all seemed lost, the camel's back wandered 
 curiously into the store. He was a dilapidated indi- 
 vidual with a cold in his head and a general trend about 
 him of downwardness. His cap was pulled down low 
 on his head, and his chin was pulled down low on his 
 chest, his coat hung down to his shoes, he looked run- 
 
38 TALES OF THE JAZZ AGE 
 
 down, down at the heels, and — Salvation Army to the 
 contrary — down and out. He said that he was the 
 taxicab-driver that the gentleman had hired at the 
 Clarendon Hotel. He had been instructed to wait 
 outside, but he had waited some time, and a suspicion 
 had grown upon him that the gentleman had gone out 
 the back way with purpose to defraud him — ^gentlemen 
 sometimes did — so he had come in. He sank down 
 onto the three-legged stool. 
 
 "Wanta go to a party?" demanded Perry sternly. 
 
 "I gotta work," answered the taxi-driver lugubriously. 
 "I gotta keep my job." 
 
 "It's a very good party." 
 
 " 'S a very good job." 
 
 "Come on!" urged Perry. "Be a good fella. See — 
 it's pretty !" He held the camel up and the tasd-driver 
 looked at it cynically. 
 
 "Huh!" 
 
 Perry searched feverishly among the folds of the cloth. 
 
 "See!" he cried enthusiastically, holding up a selec- 
 tion of folds. "This is your part. You don't even 
 have to talk. All you have to do is to walk — and sit 
 down occasionally. You do all the sitting down. 
 Think of it. I'm on my feet all the time and you can 
 sit down some of the time. The only time / can sit 
 down is when we're lying down, and you can sit down 
 when — oh, any time. See?" 
 
 "What's 'at thing?" demanded the individual dubi- 
 ously. "A shroud?" 
 
 "Not at all," said Perry indignantly. "It's a camel." 
 
 "Huh?" 
 
 Then Perry mentioned a sum of money, and the con- 
 versation left the land of grunts and assumed a practical 
 tinge. Perry and the taxi-driver tried on the camel in 
 front of the mirror. 
 
THE CAMEL'S BACK 39 
 
 "You can't see it," explained Perry, peering anxiously 
 out through the eyeholes, "but honestly, ole man, you 
 look sim'ly great ! Honestly ! " 
 
 A grunt from the hump acknowledged this somewhat 
 dubious compliment. 
 
 "Honesdy, you look great!" repeated Perry enthusi- 
 astically. "Move round a little." 
 
 The hind legs moved forward, giving the effect of 
 a huge cat-camel hunching his back preparatory to a 
 spring. 
 
 "No; move sideways." 
 
 The camel's hips went neatly out of joint; a hula 
 dancer would have writhed in envy. 
 
 "Good, isn't it?" demanded Perry, turning to Mrs. 
 Nolak for approval. 
 
 "It looks lovely," agreed Mrs. Nolak. 
 
 "We'U take it," said Perry. 
 
 The bundle was stowed under Perry's arm and they 
 left the shop. 
 
 "Go to tbe party!" he commanded as he took his 
 seat in the back. 
 
 "What party?" 
 
 "Fanzy-dress party." 
 
 "Where'boutsisit?" 
 
 This presented a new problem. Perry tried to re- 
 member, but the names of all those who had given 
 parties during the holidays danced confusedly before 
 his eyes. He could ask Mrs. Nolak, but on looking 
 out the window he saw that the shop was dark. Mrs. 
 Nolak had already faded out, a little black smudge far 
 down the snowy street. 
 
 "Drive uptown," directed Perry with fine confidence. 
 "If you see a party, stop. Otherwise I'll tell you when 
 we get there." 
 
 He fell into a hazy daydream and his thoughts wan- 
 
40 TALES OF THE JAZZ AGE 
 
 dered again to Betty — he imagined vaguely that they 
 had had a disagreement because she refused to go to the 
 party as the back part of the camel. He was just 
 slipping off into a chilly doze when he was wakened by 
 the taxi-driver opening the door and shaking him by the 
 arm. 
 
 "Here we are, maybe." 
 
 Perry looked out sleepily. A striped awning led from 
 the curb up to a spreading gray stone house, from 
 which issued the low dnunmy whine of expensive 
 jazz. He recognized the Howard Tate house. 
 
 "Sure," he said emphatically; " 'at's it! Tate's 
 party to-night. Sure, everybody's goin'." 
 
 "Say," said the individual anxiously after another 
 look at the awning, "you sure these people ain't gonna 
 romp on me for comin' here ?" 
 
 Perry drew himself up with dignity. 
 
 " 'F anybody says anything to you, just teU 'em you're 
 part of my costume." 
 
 The visualization of himself as a thing rather than a 
 person seemed to reassure the individual. 
 
 "All right," he said reluctantly. 
 
 Perry stepped out under the shelter of the awning 
 and began unrolling the camel. 
 
 "Let's go," he commanded. 
 
 Several minutes later a melancholy, hungry-looking 
 camel, emitting clouds of smoke from his mouth and 
 from the tip of his noble hump, might have been seen 
 crossing the threshhold of the Howard Tate residence, 
 passing a startled footman without so much as a snort, 
 and heading directly for the main stairs that led up to 
 the ballroom. The beast walked with a peculiar gait 
 which varied between an uncertain lockstep and a 
 stampede — but can best be described by the word 
 
THE CAMEL'S BACK 41 
 
 "halting." The camel had a halting gait — and as he 
 walked he alternately elongated and contracted like a 
 gigantic concertina. 
 
 in 
 
 The Howard Tates are, as every one who lives in To- 
 ledo knows, the most formidable people in town. Mrs. 
 Howard Tate was a Chicago Todd before she became a 
 Toledo Tate, and the family generally affect that con- 
 scious simplicity which has begun to be the earmark of 
 American aristocracy. The Tates have reached the 
 stage where they talk about pigs and farms and look at 
 you icy-eyed if you are not amused. They have begun 
 to prefer retainers rather than friends as dinner guests, 
 spend a lot of money in a quiet way, and, having lost 
 all sense of competition, are in process of growing quite 
 dull. 
 
 The dance this evening was for little Millicent 
 Tate, and though all ages were represented, the dan- 
 cers were mostly from school and college — the youn- 
 ger married crowd was at the Townsends' circus ball 
 up at the Tallyho Club. Mrs. Tate was standing 
 just iaside the ballroom, following Millicent round 
 with her eyes, and beaming whenever she caught her 
 eye. Beside her were two middle-aged sycophants, 
 who were saying what a perfectly exquisite child Milli- 
 cent was. It was at this moment that Mrs. Tate was 
 grasped firmly by the skirt and her youngest daughter, 
 Emily, aged eleven, hurled herself with an "Oof!" into 
 her mother's arms. 
 
 "Why, Emily, what's the trouble?" 
 
 "Mamma," said Emily, wild-eyed but voluble, 
 "there's something out on the stairs." 
 
42 TALES OF THE JAZZ AGE 
 
 "What?" 
 
 "There's a thing out on the stairs, mamma. I think 
 it's a big dog, mamma, but it doesn't look like a dog." 
 
 "What do you mean, Emily?" 
 
 The sycophants waved their heads sympatheti- 
 cally. 
 
 "Mamma, it looks like a — ^like a camel." 
 
 Mrs. Tate laughed. 
 
 "You saw a mean old shadow, dear, that's aU." 
 
 "No, I didn't. No, it was some kind of thing, mamma 
 — big. I was going down-stairs to see if there were any 
 more people, and this dog or something, he was coming 
 up-stairs. Kinda funny, mamma, like he was lame. 
 And then he saw me and gave a sort of growl, and then 
 he slipped at the top of the landing, and I ran." 
 
 Mrs. Tate's laugh faded. 
 
 "The child must have seen something," she said. 
 
 The sycophants agreed that the child must have seen 
 something — and suddenly all three women took an in- 
 stinctive step away from the door as the sounds of 
 muffled steps were audible just outside. 
 
 And then three startled gasps rang out as a dark 
 brown form rounded the comer, and they saw what 
 was apparently a huge beast looking down at them 
 htmgrily. 
 
 "Oof!" cried Mrs. Tate. 
 
 "0-o-oh!" cried the ladies in a chorus. 
 
 The camel suddenly humped his back, and the gasps 
 turned to shrieks. 
 
 "Oh— look!" 
 
 "What is it?" 
 
 The dancing stopped, but the dancers hurrying 
 over got quite a different impression of the invader; 
 in fact, the young people immediately suspected that 
 
THE CAMEL'S BACK 43 
 
 it was a stunt, a hired entertainer come to amuse 
 the party. The boys in long trousers looked at it 
 rather disdainfully, and sauntered over with their 
 hands in their pockets, feeling that their intelligence 
 was being insulted. But the girls uttered little shouts 
 of glee. 
 
 "It's a camel!" 
 
 "Well, if he isn't the funniest!" 
 
 The camel stood there uncertainly, swa5dng slightly 
 from side to side, and seeming to take in the room in a 
 careful, appraising glance; then as if he had come to an 
 abrupt decision he turned and ambled swiftly out the 
 door. 
 
 Mr. Howard Tate had just come out of the hbrary on 
 the lower floor, and was standing chatting with a young 
 man in the hall. Suddenly they heard the noise of 
 shouting up-stairs, and almost immediately a succession 
 of bumping sounds, followed by the precipitous appear- 
 ance at the foot of the stairway of a large brown beast 
 that seemed to be going somewhere in a great hurry. 
 
 "Now what the devil!" said Mr. Tate, starting. 
 
 The beast picked itself up not without dignity and, 
 affecting an air of extreme nonchalance, as if he had 
 just remembered an important engagement, started at 
 a mixed gait toward the front door. In fact, his front 
 legs began casually to run. 
 
 "See here now," said Mr. Tate sternly. "Here I 
 Grab it, Butterfield ! Grab it ! " 
 
 The young man enveloped the rear of the camel 
 in a pair of compelling arms, and, realizing that 
 further locomotion was impossible, the front end sub- 
 mitted to capture and stood resignedly in a state of 
 some agitation. By this time a flood of young people 
 was pouring down-stairs, and Mr. Tate, suspecting 
 
44 TALES OF THE JAZZ AGE 
 
 everything from an ingenious burglar to an escaped 
 lunatic, gave crisp directions to the young man: 
 "Hold him ! Lead him in here; we'll soon see." 
 The camel consented to be led into the library, and Mr. 
 Tate, after locking the door, took a revolver from a table 
 drawer and instructed the young man to take the thiug's 
 head ofF. Then he gasped and returned the revolver 
 to its hiding-place. 
 
 "Well, Perry Parkhurst!" he exclaimed in amaze- 
 ment. 
 
 "Got the wrong party, Mr. Tate," said Perry sheep- 
 ishly. "Hope I didn't scare you." 
 
 "Well — ^you gave us a thrill, Perry." Realization 
 dawned on him. "You're boimd for the Townsends' 
 circus ball." 
 
 "That's the general idea." 
 
 "Let me introduce Mr. Butterfield, Mr. Parkhurst." 
 Then turning to Perry: "Butterfield is staying with us 
 for a few days." 
 
 "I got a little mixed up," mumbled Perry. "I'm 
 very sorry." 
 
 "Perfectly all right; most natural mistake in the 
 world. I've got a clown rig and I'm going down 
 there myself after a while." He turned to Butter- 
 field. "Better change your mind and come down with 
 us." , 
 
 The young man demurred. He was going to bed. 
 
 "Have a drink. Perry?" suggested Mr. Tate. 
 
 "Thanks, I wiU." 
 
 "And, say," continued Tate quickly, "I'd forgotten all 
 about your — friend here." He indicated the rear part 
 of the camel. "I didn't mean to seem discourteous. Is 
 it any one I know ? Bring him out." 
 
 "It's not a friend," explained Perry hurriedly. "I 
 Just rented him." 
 
THE CAMEL'S BACK 45 
 
 "Does he drink?" 
 
 "Do you?" demanded Perry, twisting himseK tor- 
 tuously round. 
 
 There was a faint sound of assent. 
 
 "Sure he does!" said Mr. Tate heartily. "A really 
 efficient camel ought to be able to drink enough so it'd 
 last him three days." 
 
 "Tell you," said Perry anxiously, "he isn't exactly 
 dressed up enough to come out. If you give me the 
 bottle I can hand it back to him and he can take his 
 inside." 
 
 From under the cloth was audible the enthusiastic 
 smacking sound inspired by this suggestion. When a 
 butler had appeared with bottles, glasses, and siphon 
 one of the bottles was handed back; thereafter the si- 
 lent partner could be heard imbibing long potations at 
 frequent intervals. 
 
 Thus passed a benign hour. At ten o'clock Mr. Tate 
 decided that they'd better be starting. He donned his 
 clown's costume; Perry replaced the camel's head, and 
 side by side they traversed on foot the single block be- 
 tween the Tate house and the Tallyho Club. 
 
 The circus ball was in full swing. A great tent fly 
 had been put up inside the ballroom and round the walls 
 had been built rows of booths representing the various 
 attractions of a circus side show, but these were now 
 vacated and over the floor swarmed a shouting, laughing 
 medley of youth and color — clowns, bearded ladies, 
 acrobats, bareback riders, ringmasters, tattooed men, 
 and charioteers. The Townsends had determined to 
 assure their party of success, so a great quantity of 
 liquor had been surreptitiously brought over from 
 their house and was now flowing freely. A green 
 ribbon ran along the wall completely round the ball- 
 room, with pointing arrows alongside and signs which 
 
46 TALES OF THE JAZZ AGE 
 
 instructed the uninitiated to "Follow the green line!" 
 The green line led down to the bar, where waited 
 pure punch and wicked punch and plain dark-green 
 bottles. 
 
 On the wall above the bar was another arrow, red 
 and very wavy, and under it the slogan: "Now follow 
 this!" 
 
 But even amid the luxury of costume and high spirits 
 represented there, the entrance of the camel created 
 something of a stir, and Perry was immediately sur- 
 rounded by a curious, laughing crowd attempting to 
 penetrate the identity of this beast that stood by the 
 wide doorway eying the dancers with his hungry, melan- 
 choly gaze. 
 
 And then Perry saw Betty standing in front of a 
 booth, talking to a comic policeman. She was dressed 
 IQ the costume of an Egyptian snake-charmer: her 
 tawny hair was braided and drawn through brass 
 rings, the effect crowned with a glittering Oriental tiara. 
 Her fair face was stained to a warm olive glow and on 
 her arms and the half moon of her back writhed 
 painted serpents with siugle eyes of venomous green. 
 Her feet were in sandals and her skirt was slit to the 
 knees, so that when she walked one caught a glimpse 
 of other slim serpents painted just above her bare an- 
 kles. Wound about her neck was a glittering cobra. 
 Altogether a charming costume — one that caused the 
 more nervous among the older women to shrink away 
 from her when she passed, and the more troublesome 
 ones to make great talk about "shouldn't be allowed" 
 and "perfectly disgraceful." 
 
 But Perry, peering through the uncertain eyes of 
 the camel, saw only her face, radiant, animated, and 
 glowing with excitement, and her arms and shoulders, 
 whose mobile, expressive gestures made her always the 
 outstanding figure in any group. He was fascinated 
 
THE CAMEL'S BACK 47 
 
 and his fascination exercised a sobering effect on him. 
 With a growing clarity the events of the day came back 
 — rage rose within him, and with a half-formed inten- 
 tion of taking her away from the crowd he started toward 
 her — or rather he elongated slightly, for he had neglected 
 to issue the preparatory command necessary to locomo- 
 tion. 
 
 But at this point fickle Kismet, who for a day had 
 played with him bitterly and sardonically, decided to 
 reward him in full for the amusement he had afforded 
 her. Kismet turned the tawny eyes of the snake- 
 charmer to the camel. Kismet led her to lean toward 
 the man beside her and say, "Who's that? That 
 camel ? " 
 
 "Darned if I know." 
 
 But a Httle man named Warburton, who knew it all, 
 foimd it necessary to hazard an opinion: 
 
 "It came in with Mr. Tate. I think part of it's 
 probably Warren Butterfield, the architect from New 
 York, who's visiting the Tates." 
 
 Something stirred in Betty Medill — that age-old in- 
 terest of the provincial girl in the visiting man. 
 
 "Oh," she said casually after a slight pause. 
 
 At the end of the next dance Betty and her partner 
 finished up within a few feet of the camel. With 
 the informal audacity that was the key-note of the 
 evening she reached out and gently rubbed the camel's 
 nose. 
 
 "HeUo, old camel." 
 
 The camel stirred uneasily. 
 
 "You 'fraid of me ?" said Betty, lifting her eyebrows 
 in reproof. "Don't be. You see I'm a snake-charmer, 
 but I'm pretty good at camels too." 
 
 The camel bowed very low and some one made the 
 obvious remark about beauty and the beast. 
 
 Mrs. Townsend approached the group. 
 
48 TALES OF THE JAZZ AGE 
 
 " WeU, Mr. Butterfield," she said helpfuUy, "I wouldn't 
 have recognized you." 
 
 Perry bowed again and smUed gleefully behind his 
 mask. 
 
 "And who is this with you?" she inquired. 
 
 "Oh," said Perry, his voice muflBed by the thick cloth 
 and quite unrecognizable, "he isn't a fellow, Mrs. 
 Townsend. He's just part of my costume." 
 
 Mrs. Townsend laughed and moved away. Perry 
 turned again to Betty. 
 
 "So," he thought, "this is how much she cares! 
 On the very day of our final rupture she starts a flirta- 
 tion with another man — an absolute stranger." 
 
 On an impulse he gave her a soft nudge with his 
 shoulder and waved his head suggestively toward the 
 hall, making it clear that he desired her to leave her 
 partner and accompany him. 
 
 "By-by, Rus," she caUed to her partner. "This old 
 camel's got me. Where we going, Prince of Beasts i"' 
 
 The noble animal made no rejoinder, but stalked 
 gravely along in the direction of a secluded nook on the 
 side stairs. 
 
 There she seated herself, and the camel, after some 
 seconds of confusion which included gruff orders and 
 sounds of a heated dispute gorag on in his interior, 
 placed himself beside her — his hind legs stretching out 
 uncomfortably across two steps. 
 
 "Well, old egg," said Betty cheerfully, "how do you 
 like our happy party .'' " 
 
 The old egg indicated that he liked it by rolling his 
 head ecstatically and executing a gleeful kick with his 
 hoofs. 
 
 "This is the first time that I ever had a tete-a-t^te 
 with a man's valet 'round" — she pointed to the hind 
 legs — "or whatever that is." 
 
THE CAMEL'S BACK 49 
 
 "Oh," mumbled Perry, "he's deaf and blind." 
 
 "I should think you'd feel rather handicapped — ^you 
 can't very well toddle, even if you want to." 
 
 The camel hung his head lugubriously. 
 
 "I wish you'd say something," continued Betty 
 sweetly. "Say you like me, camel. Say you think 
 I'm beautiful. Say you'd like to belong to a pretty 
 snake-charmer." 
 
 The camel would. 
 
 "Will you dance with me, camel?" 
 
 The camel would try. 
 
 Betty devoted half an hour to the camel. She de- 
 voted at least half an hour to all visiting men. It was 
 usually sufl&cient. When she approached a new man 
 the current debutantes were accustomed to scatter 
 right and left like a close column deploying before a 
 machine-gun. And so to Perry Parkhurst was awarded 
 the unique privilege of seeing his love as others saw her. 
 He was flirted with violently ! 
 
 IV 
 
 This paradise of frail foundation was broken into by 
 the sounds of a general ingress to the ballroom; the 
 cotillion was beginning. Betty and the camel joined 
 the crowd, her brown hand resting lightly on his 
 shoulder, defiantly S3anbolizing her complete adoption 
 of him. 
 
 When they entered the couples were already seating 
 themselves at tables round the walls, and Mrs. Town- 
 send, resplendent as a super bareback rider with 
 rather too rotund calves, was standing in the centre 
 with the ringmaster in charge of arrangements. At 
 a signal to the band every one rose and began to 
 dance. 
 
50 TALES OF THE JAZZ AGE 
 
 "Isn't it just slick!" sighed Betty. "Do you think 
 you can possibly dance ? " 
 
 Perry nodded enthusiastically. He felt suddenly 
 exuberant. After all, he was here incognito talking to 
 his love — he could wink patronizingly at the world. 
 
 So Perry danced the cotillion. I say danced, but that 
 is stretching the word far beyond the wildest dreams of 
 the jazziest terpsichorean. He suffered his partner to. 
 put her hands on his helpless shoulders and pull him 
 here and there over the floor while he hung his huge 
 head dodlely over her shoulder and made futile duromy 
 motions with his feet. His hind legs danced in a manner 
 all their own, chiefly by hopping first on one foot and 
 then on the other. Never being sure whether danciag 
 was going on or not, the hind legs played safe by going 
 through a series of steps whenever the music started 
 playing. So the spectacle was frequently presented of 
 the front part of the camel standing at ease and the rear 
 keeping up a constant energetic motion calculated to 
 rouse a sympathetic perspiration in any soft-hearted 
 observer. 
 
 He was frequently favored. He danced first with a 
 tall lady covered with straw who announced Jovially 
 that she was a bale of hay and coyly begged him not to 
 eat her. 
 
 "I'd like to; you're so sweet," said the camel gal- 
 lantly. 
 
 Each time the ringmaster shouted his caU of "Men 
 up!" he lumbered ferociously for Betty with the card- 
 board Wienerwurst or the photograph of the bearded 
 lady or whatever the favor chanced to be. Sometimes 
 he reached her first, but usually his rushes were unsuc- 
 cessful and resulted in intense interior arguments. 
 
 "For Heaven's sake," Perry would snarl fiercely be- 
 tween his clenched teeth, "get a little pep! I could 
 
THE CAMEL'S BACK 51 
 
 have gotten her that time if you'd picked your feet 
 up." 
 
 "Well, gimme a little wamin' !" 
 
 "I did, dam you." 
 
 "I can't see a dog-gone thing in here." 
 
 "All you have to do is follow me. It's just like drag- 
 ging a load of sand roimd to walk with you." 
 
 "Maybe you wanta try back here." ' 
 
 "You shut up! If these people found you in this 
 room they'd give you the worst beating you ever had. 
 They'd take your taxi license away from you !" 
 
 Perry surprised himself by the ease with which he- 
 made this monstrous threat, but it seemed to have a- 
 soporific influence on his companion, for he gave out an. 
 "aw gwan" and subsided into abashed silence. 
 
 The ringmaster mounted to the top of the piano and 
 waved his hand for silence. 
 
 "Prizes ! " he cried. " Gather round ! " 
 
 "Yea! Prizes!" 
 
 Self-consciously the circle swayed forward. The 
 rather pretty girl who had mustered the nerve to come 
 as a bearded lady trembled with excitement, thinking 
 to be rewarded for an evening's hideousness. The man 
 who had spent the afternoon having tattoo marks painted 
 on him skulked on the edge of the crowd, blushing furi- 
 ously when any one told him he was sure to get it. 
 
 "Lady and gent performers of this circus," announced 
 the ringmaster jovially, "I am sure we will all agree 
 that a good time has been had by all. We will now be- 
 stow honor where honor is due by bestowing the prizes. 
 Mrs. Townsend has asked me to bestow the prizes. 
 Now, fellow performers, the first prize is for that lady 
 who has displayed this evening the most striking, be- 
 coming" — at this point the bearded lady sighed re- 
 signedly — "and original costume." Here the bale of 
 
52 TALES OF THE JAZZ AGE 
 
 hay pricked up her ears. "Now I am sure that the 
 decision which has been agreed upon will be unanimous 
 with all here present. The first prize goes to Miss Betty 
 Medill, the charming Egyptian snake-charmer." 
 
 There was a burst of applause, chiefly masculine, 
 and Miss Betty Medill, blushing beautifully through her 
 ohve paint, was passed up to receive her award. With 
 a tender glance the ringmaster handed down to her a 
 huge bouquet of orchids. 
 
 "And now," he continued, looking round him, "the 
 other prize is for that man who has the most amusing 
 and original costume. This prize goes without dispute 
 to a guest in our midst, a gentleman who is visiting here 
 but whose stay we all hope will be long and merry — ^in 
 short, to the noble camel who has entertained us all by 
 his hungry look and his brilliant dancing throughout 
 the evening." 
 
 He ceased and there was a violent clapping and yea- 
 ing, for it was a popular choice. The prize, a large box 
 of cigars, was put aside for the camel, as he was ana- 
 tomically tmable to accept it in person. 
 
 "And now," continued the ringmaster, "we wiU 
 wind up the cotiUion with the marriage of Mirth to 
 FoUy! 
 
 "Form for the grand wedding march, the beautiful 
 snake-charmer and the noble camel in front ! " 
 
 Betty skipped forward cheerily and wound an olive 
 arm round the camel's neck. Behind them formed the 
 procession of little boys, little girls, country jakes, fat 
 ladies, thin men, sword-swallowers, wild men of Borneo, 
 and armless wonders, many of them well in their cups, 
 all of them excited and happy and dazzled by the flow 
 of light and color round them, and by the familiar faces, 
 strangely unfamiliar under bizarre wigs and barbaric 
 paint. The voluptuous chords of the wedding march 
 
THE CAMEL'S BACK 53 
 
 done in blasphemous syncopation issued in a delirious 
 blend from the trombones and saxophones — and the 
 march began. 
 
 "Aren't you glad, camel?" demanded Betty sweetly 
 as they stepped off. "Aren't you glad we're going to 
 be married and you're going to belong to the nice snake- 
 charmer ever afterward?" 
 
 The camel's front legs pranced, expressing excessive 
 joy, 
 
 "Minister! Minister! Where's the minister?" cried 
 voices out of the revel. "Who's going to be the clergy- 
 man ? " 
 
 The head of Jumbo, obese negro, waiter at the Tally- 
 ho Club for many years, appeared rashly through a half- 
 opened pantry door. 
 
 "Oh, Jumbo!" 
 
 " Get old Jumbo. He's the feUa ! " 
 
 " Come on, Jimabo. How 'bout marrying us a couple ? " 
 
 "Yea!" 
 
 Jumbo was seized by four comedians, stripped of his 
 apron, and escorted to a raised dais at the head of the 
 ball. There his coUar was removed and replaced back 
 side forward with ecclesiastical effect. The parade sep- 
 arated into two lines, leaving an aisle for the bride and 
 groom. 
 
 "Lawdy, man," roared Jumbo, "Ah got ole Bible 'n* 
 ev'ythin', sho nuff." 
 
 He produced a battered Bible from an interior pocket. 
 
 " Yea ! Jumbo's got a Bible ! " 
 
 "Razor, too, I'll bet!" 
 
 Together the snake-charmer and the camel ascended 
 the cheering aisle and stopped in front of Jimibo. 
 
 "Where's yo license, camel?" 
 
 A man near by prodded Perry. 
 
 "Give him a piece of paper. Anything'll do." 
 
54 TALES OF THE JAZZ AGE 
 
 Perry fumbled confusedly in his pocket, found a 
 folded paper, and pushed it out through the camel's 
 mouth. Holding it upside down Jumbo pretended to 
 scan it earnestly. 
 
 "Dis yeah's a special camel's license," he said. "Get 
 you ring ready, camel." 
 
 Inside the camel Perry turned round and addressed 
 his worse half. 
 
 " Gimme a ring, for Heaven's sake ! " 
 
 "I ain't got none," protested a weary voice. 
 
 "You have. I saw it." 
 
 "I ain't goin' to take it offen my hand." 
 
 "If you don't I'll kill you." 
 
 There was a gasp and Perry felt a huge affair of 
 rhinestone and brass inserted into his hand. 
 
 Again he was nudged from the outside. 
 
 "Speak up!" 
 
 "I do!" cried Perry quickly. 
 
 He heard Betty's responses given in a debonair tone, 
 and even in this burlesque the sound thrilled him. 
 
 Then he had pushed the rhinestone through a tear 
 in the camel's coat and was slipping it on her finger, 
 muttering ancient and historic words after Jumbo. 
 He didn't want any one to know about this ever. His 
 one idea was to slip away without having to disclose 
 his identity, for Mr. Tate had so far kept his secret 
 well. A dignified young man. Perry — and this might 
 injure his infant law practice. 
 
 "Embrace the bride!" 
 
 "Unmask, camel, and kiss her!" 
 
 Instinctively his heart beat high as Betty turned to 
 him laughingly and began to stroke the card-board 
 muzzle. He felt his self-control giving way, he 
 longed to surround her with his arms and declare his 
 identity and kiss those lips that smiled only a foot 
 
THE CAMEL'S BACK 55 
 
 away — when suddenly the laughter and applause round 
 them died off and a curious hush fell over the hall. 
 Perry and Betty looked up in surprise. Jumbo had 
 given vent to a huge "Hello!" in such a startled 
 voice that all eyes were bent on him. 
 
 "Hello!" he said again. He had turned round the 
 camel's marriage license, which he had been holding up- 
 side down, produced spectacles, and was studying it 
 agonizingly. 
 
 "Why," he exclaimed, and in the pervading silence 
 his words were heard plainly by every one in the room, 
 "this yeah's a sho-nuff marriage permit." 
 
 "What?" 
 
 "Huh?" 
 
 "Say it again, Jumbo!" 
 
 "Sure you can read?" 
 
 Jumbo waved them to silence and Perry's blood 
 burned to fire in his veins as he realized the break he 
 had made. 
 
 "Yassuh!" repeated Jumbo. "This yeah's a sho- 
 nuff license, and the pa'ties concerned one of 'em is dis 
 yeah young lady, Miz Betty Medill, and th' other's 
 Mistah Perry Pa'khurst." 
 
 There was a general gasp, and a low rumble broke out 
 as all eyes fell on the camel. Betty shrank away 
 from him quickly, her tawny eyes giving out sparks 
 of fury. 
 
 "Is you Mistah Pa'khurst, you camel ?" 
 
 Perry made no answer. The crowd pressed up closer 
 and stared at him. He stood frozen rigid with embar- 
 rassment, his cardboard face still hungry and sardonic 
 as he regarded the ominous Jumbo. 
 
 "Y'all bettah speak up!" said Jumbo slowly, 
 "this yeah's a mighty serious mattah. Outside mah 
 duties at this club ah happens to be a sho-nuff minister 
 
S6 TALES OF THE JAZZ AGE 
 
 in the Firs' CuUud Baptis' Church. It done look to me 
 as though y'all is gone an' got married." 
 
 The scene that followed ■will go down forever in the 
 annals of the Tallyho Club. Stout matrons fainted, one 
 hundred per cent Americans swore, wild-eyed debutantes 
 babbled in lightning groups instantly formed and in- 
 stantly dissolved, and a great buzz of chatter, virulent yet 
 oddly subdued, himimed through the chaotic ballroom. 
 Feverish youths swore they would kill Perry or Jumbo 
 or themselves or some one, and the Baptis' preacheh 
 was besieged by a tempestuous covey of clamorous 
 amateur lawyers, asking questions, making threats, de- 
 manding precedents, ordering the bonds annulled, and 
 especially trying to ferret out any hint of prearrange- 
 ment in what had occurred. 
 
 In the comer Mrs. Townsend was crying softly on 
 the shoulder of Mr. Howard Tate, who was trying 
 vainly to comfort her; they were exchanging "all my 
 fault's " volubly and voluminously. Outside on a snow- 
 covered walk Mr. Cyrus Medill, the Aluminimi Man, 
 was being paced slowly up and down between two 
 brawny charioteers, giving vent now to a string of 
 imrepeatables, now to wild pleadings that they'd just 
 let him get at Jumbo. He was facetiously attired for 
 the evening as a wild man of Borneo, and the most 
 exacting stage-manager would have acknowledged any 
 improvement in casting the part to be quite impos- 
 sible. 
 
 Meanwhile the two principals held the real centre of 
 the stage. Betty Medill — or was it Betty Parkhurst ? — ■ 
 storming furiously, was surrounded by the plainer girls 
 — the prettier ones were too busy talking about her to 
 
THE CAMEL:S back 57 
 
 pay much attention to her — and over on the other side 
 of the hall stood the camel, still intact except for his 
 headpiece, which dangled pathetically on his chest. 
 Perry was earnestly engaged in making protestations of 
 his innocence to a ring of angry, puzzled men. Every 
 few minutes, just as he had apparently proved his case, 
 some one would mention the marriage certificate, and 
 the inquisition would begin again. 
 
 A girl named Marion Cloud, considered the second 
 best belle of Toledo, changed the gist of the situation 
 by a remark she made to Betty. 
 
 "Well," she said maliciously, "it'll all blow over, 
 dear. The courts will annul it without question." 
 
 Betty's angry tears dried miraculously in her eyes, 
 her lips shut tight together, and she looked stonily at 
 Marion. Then she rose and, scattering her sympathizers 
 right and left, walked directly across the room to Perry, 
 who stared at her in terror. Again silence crept down 
 upon the room. 
 
 "Will you have the decency to grant me five minutes' 
 conversation — or wasn't that included in your plans ? " 
 
 He nodded, his mouth unable to form words. 
 
 Indicating coldly that he was to follow her she walked 
 out into the hall with her chin uptilted and headed for 
 the privacy of one of the little card-rooms. 
 
 Perry started after her, but was brought to a jerky 
 halt by the failure of his hind legs to function. 
 
 "You stay here!" he commanded savagely. 
 
 "I can't," whined a voice from the himip, "imless 
 you get out first and let me get out." 
 
 Perry hesitated, but imable any longer to tolerate 
 the eyes of the curious crowd he muttered a command 
 and the camel moved carefully from the room on its 
 four legs. 
 
 Betty was waiting for him. 
 
S8 TALES OF THE JAZZ AGE 
 
 "Well," she began furiously, "you see what you've 
 done! You and that crazy license! I told you you 
 shouldn't have gotten it ! " 
 
 "My dear girl, I " 
 
 "Don't say 'dear girl' to me! Save that for your 
 real wife if you ever get one after this disgraceful per- 
 formance. And don't try to pretend it wasn't all ar- 
 ranged. You know you gave that colored waiter money ! 
 You know you did ! Do you mean to say you didn't 
 try to marry me ? " 
 
 "No — of course " 
 
 "Yes, you'd better admit it! You tried it, and now 
 what are you going to do ? Do you know my father's 
 nearly crazy? It'll serve you right if he tries to lull 
 you. He'll take his gun and put some cold steel in you. 
 Even if this wed — this thing can be annulled it'll hang 
 over me all the rest of my life ! " 
 
 Perry could not resist quoting softly: "'Oh, camel, 
 wouldn't you like to belong to the pretty snake-charmer 
 for all your ' " 
 
 "Shut up!" cried Betty. 
 
 There was a pause. 
 
 "Betty," said Perry finally, "there's only one thing 
 to do that will really get us out clear. That's for you 
 to marry me." 
 
 " Marry you ! " 
 
 "Yes. Really it's the only " 
 
 "You shut up! I wouldn't marry you if — ^if " 
 
 "I know. If I were the last man on earth. But if 
 you care anything about your reputation— — " 
 
 "Reputation!" she cried. "You're a nice one to 
 think about my reputation now. Why didn't you think 
 about my reputation before you hired that horrible 
 Jumbo to — to " 
 
 Perry tossed up his hands hopelessly. 
 
THE CAMEL'S BACK 59 
 
 "Very well. I'll do anything you want. Lord knows 
 I renounce all claims ! " 
 
 "But," said a new voice, "I don't." 
 
 Perry and Betty started, and she put her hand to her 
 heart. 
 
 "For Heaven's sake, what was that?" 
 
 "It's me," said the camel's back. 
 
 In a minute Perry had whipped off the camel's skin, 
 and a lax, limp object, his clothes hanging on him 
 damply, his hand clenched tightly on an almost empty 
 bottle, stood defiantly before them. 
 
 "Oh," cried Betty, "you brought that object in here 
 to frighten me ! You told me he was deaf — that awful 
 person ! " 
 
 The camel's back sat down on a chair with a sigh of 
 satisfaction. 
 
 "Don't talk 'at way about me, lady. I ain't no per- 
 son. I'm your husband." 
 
 "Husband!" 
 
 The cry was wnmg simultaneously from Betty and 
 Perry. 
 
 "Why, sure. I'm as much your husband as that gink 
 is. The smoke didn't marry you to the camel's front. 
 He married you to the whole camel. Why, that's my 
 ring you got on your finger ! " 
 
 With a little yelp she snatched the ring from her finger 
 and flung it passionately at the floor. 
 
 "What's all this ?" demanded Perry dazedly. 
 
 " Jes' that you better fix me an' fix me right. If you 
 don't I'm a-gonna have the same claim you got to bein' 
 married to her ! " 
 
 "That's bigamy," said Perry, turning gravely to 
 Betty. 
 
 Then came the supreme moment of Perry's evening, 
 the ultimate chance on which he risked his fortunes. He 
 
6o TALES OF THE JAZZ AGE 
 
 rose and looked first at Betty, where she sat weakly, 
 aghast at this new complication, and then at the indi- 
 vidual who swayed from side to side on his chair, un- 
 certainly, menacingly. 
 
 "Very well," said Perry slowly to the individual, 
 "you can have her. Betty, I'm going to prove to you 
 that as far as I'm concerned our marriage was entirely 
 accidental. I'm going to renounce utterly my rights to 
 have you as my wife, and give you to — to the man 
 whose ring you wear — ^your lawful husband." 
 
 There was a pause and four horror-stricken eyes 
 were turned on him. 
 
 "Good-by, Betty," he said brokenly. "Don't for- 
 get me in your new-found happiness. I'm going to 
 leave for the Far West on the morning train. Think of 
 me kindly, Betty." 
 
 With a last glance at them he turned and his head 
 rested on his chest as his hand touched the door-knob. 
 
 "Good-by," he repeated. He turned the door-knob. 
 
 But at this sound the snakes and silk and tawny hair 
 precipitated themselves violently toward him. 
 
 "Oh, Perry, don't leave me! Perry, Perry, take me 
 with you!" 
 
 Her tears flowed damply on his neck. Calmly he 
 folded his arms about her. 
 
 "I don't care," she cried. "I love you and if you can 
 wake up a minister at this hour and have it done over 
 again I'll go West with you." 
 
 Oyer her shoulder the front part of the camel looked 
 at the back part of the camel — and they exchanged a 
 particularly subtle, esoteric sort of wink that only true 
 camels can understand. 
 
MAY DAY 
 
 There had been a war fought and won and the great 
 city of the conquering people was crossed with trium- 
 phal arches and vivid with thrown flowers of white, 
 red, and rose. All through the long spring days the re- 
 turning soldiers marched up the chief highway behind 
 the strump of drums and the joyous, resonant wind of 
 the brasses, while merchants and clerks left their bick- 
 erings and figurings and, crowding to the windows, 
 turned their white-bimched faces gravely upon the pass- 
 ing battalions. 
 
 Never had there been such splendor in the great city, 
 for the victorious war had brought plenty in its train, 
 and the merchants had flocked thither from the South 
 and West with their households to taste of all the lus- 
 cious feasts and witness the lavish entertainments pre- 
 pared — and to buy for their women furs against the next 
 winter and bags of golden mesh and varicolored slip- 
 pers of silk and silver and rose satin and cloth of gold. 
 
 So gaily and noisily were the peace and prosperity 
 impending h3anned by the scribes and poets of the con- 
 quering people that more and more spenders had gath- 
 ered from the provinces to drink the wine of excitement, 
 and faster and faster did the merchants dispose of their 
 trinkets and slippers until they sent up a mighty cry 
 for more trinkets and more slippers in order that they 
 might give in barter what was demanded of them. 
 Some even of them flung up their hands helplessly, 
 shouting: 
 
 "Alas 1 1 have no more slippers ! and alas ! I have no 
 
 6i 
 
62 TALES OF THE JAZZ AGE 
 
 more trinkets ! May Heaven help me, for I know not 
 what I shall do!" 
 
 But no one listened to their great outcry, for the 
 throngs were far too busy — day by day, the foot-soldiers 
 trod jauntily the highway and all exulted because the 
 young men returning were pure and brave, sound of 
 tooth and pink of cheek, and the young women of the 
 land were virgins and comely both of face and of figure. 
 
 So during all this time there were many adventures 
 that happened in the great city, and, of these, several — 
 or perhaps one — are here set down. 
 
 At nine o'clock on the morning of the first of May, 
 1919, a young man spoke to the room clerk at the Bilt- 
 more Hotel, asking if Mr. Philip Dean were registered 
 there, and if so, could he be connected with Mr. Dean's 
 rooms. The inquirer was dressed in a well-cut, shabby 
 suit. He was small, slender, and darkly handsome; 
 his eyes were framed above with unusually long eye- 
 lashes and below with the blue semicircle of ill health, 
 this latter effect heightened by an unnatural glow which 
 colored his face like a low, incessant fever. 
 
 Mr. Dean was staying there. The young man was 
 directed to a telephone at the side. 
 
 After a second his connection was made; a sleepy 
 voice hello'd from somewhere above. 
 
 "Mr. Dean?" — this very eagerly — "it's Gordon, 
 Phil. It's Gordon Sterrett. I'm down-stairs. I heard 
 you were in New York and I had a hunch you'd be here." 
 
 The sleepy voice became gradually enthusiastic. Well, 
 how was Gordy, old boy! Well, he certainly was sur- 
 prised and tickled! Would Gordy come right up, for 
 Pete's sake I 
 
MAY DAY 62 
 
 A few minutes later Philip Dean, dressed in blue sUk 
 pajamas, opened his door and the two young men greeted 
 each other with a half-embarrassed exuberance. They' 
 were both about twenty-four, Yale graduates of the year 
 before the war; but there the resemblance stopped 
 abruptly. Dean was blond, ruddy, and rugged under his 
 thin pajamas. Everything about him radiated fitness 
 and bodily comfort. He smiled frequently, showing 
 large and prominent teeth. 
 
 "I was going to look you up," he cried enthusiasti- 
 cally. "I'm taking a couple of weeks off. If you'll sit 
 down a sec I'll be right with you. Going to take a 
 shower." 
 
 As he vanished into the bathroom his visitor's dark 
 eyes roved nervously around the room, resting for a 
 moment on a great English travelling bag in the comer 
 and on a family of thick silk shirts littered on the chairs 
 amid impressive neckties and soft wooUen socks. 
 
 Gordon rose and, picking up one of the shirts, gave it 
 a minute examination. It was of very heavy silk, yel- 
 low, with a pale blue stripe — and there were nearly a 
 dozen of them. He stared involuntarily at his own 
 shirt-cuflfs — they were ragged and hnty at the edges and 
 soiled to a faint gray. Dropping the silk shirt, he held 
 his coat-sleeves down and worked the frayed shirt-cuffs 
 up till they were out of sight. Then he went to the 
 mirror and looked at himself with listless, unhappy 
 interest. His tie, of former glory, was faded and thumb- 
 creased — ^it served no longer to hide the jagged button- 
 holes of his collar. He thought, quite without amuse- 
 ment, that only three years before he had received a 
 scattering vote in the senior elections at college for being 
 the best-dressed man in his class. 
 
 Dean emerged from the bathroom polishing his body. ' 
 
 "Saw an old friend of yours last night," he remarked. 
 
64 TALES OF THE JAZZ AGE 
 
 "Passed her in the lobby and couldn't think of her name 
 to save my neck. That girl you brought up to New 
 Haven senior year." 
 
 Gordon started. 
 
 "Edith Bradin ? That whom you mean ?" 
 
 "'At's the one. Damn good looking. She's still 
 sort of a pretty doll — ^you know what I mean: as if you 
 touched her she'd smear." 
 
 He surveyed his shining self complacently in the 
 mirror, smiled faintly, exposing a section of teeth. 
 
 "She must be twenty-three anjrway," he continued. 
 
 "Twenty- two last month," said Gordon absently. 
 
 "What? Oh, last month. Well, I imagine she's 
 down for the Gamma Psi dance. Did you know we're 
 having a Yale Gamma Psi dance to-night at Delmoni- 
 co's ? You better come up, Gordy. Half of New 
 Haven'll probably be there. I can get you an invita- 
 tion." 
 
 Draping himself reluctantly in fresh underwear, Dean 
 lit a cigarette and sat down by the open window, in- 
 specting his calves and knees under the morning sun- 
 shine which poured into the room. 
 
 "Sit down, Gordy," he suggested, "and teU me all 
 about what you've been doing and what you're doing 
 now and everything." 
 
 Gordon collapsed unexpectedly upon the bed; lay 
 there inert and spiritless. His mouth, which habitually 
 dropped a little open when his face was in repose, be- 
 came suddenly helpless and pathetic. 
 
 "What's the matter?" asked Dean quickly. 
 
 "Oh, God!" 
 
 "What's the matter?" 
 
 "Every God damn thing in the world," he said miser- 
 ably. "I've absolutely gone to pieces, Phil. I'm all 
 in." 
 
MAY DAY 6s 
 
 "Huh?" 
 
 "I'm all in." His voice was shaking. 
 
 Dean scrutinized him more closely with appraising 
 blue eyes. 
 
 "You certainly look all shot." 
 
 "I am. I've made a hell of a mess of everything." 
 He paused. "I'd better start at the beginning — or will 
 it bore you ? " 
 
 . "Not at all; go on." There was, however, a hesitant 
 note in Dean's voice. This trip East had been planned 
 for a holiday — to find Gordon Sterrett in trouble exas- 
 perated him a little. 
 
 "Go on," he repeated, and then added half imder his 
 breath, " Get it over with." 
 
 "Well," began Gordon unsteadily, "I got back from 
 France in February, went home to Harrisburg for a 
 month, and then came down to New York to get a job. 
 I got one — ^with an export company. They fired me 
 yesterday." 
 
 "Fired you?" 
 
 " I'm coming to that, Phil. I want to tell you frankly. 
 You're about the only man I can turn to in a matter like 
 this. You won't mind if I just tell you frankly, will 
 you, Phil?" 
 
 Dean stiffened a bit more. The pats he was bestow- 
 ing on his knees grew perfunctory. He felt vaguely that 
 he was being unfairly saddled with responsibility; he 
 was not even sure he wanted to be told. Though 
 never surprised at finding Gordon Sterrett in mild 
 difficulty, there was something in this present misery 
 that repelled him and hardened him, even though it 
 excited his curiosity. 
 
 "Goon." 
 
 "It's a girl." 
 
 "Hm." Dean resolved that nothing was going to 
 
66 TALES OF THE JAZZ AGE 
 
 spoil his trip. If Gordon was going to be depressing, 
 then he'd have to see less of Gordon. 
 
 "Her name is Jewel Hudson," went on the distressed 
 voice from the bed. "She used to be 'pure,' I guess, 
 up to about a year ago. Lived here in New York — 
 poor family. Her people are dead now and she lives 
 with an old aunt. You see it was just about the time 
 I met her that everybody began to come back from 
 France in droves — and all I did was to welcome the 
 newly arrived and go on parties with 'em. That's the 
 way it started, Phil, just from being glad to see every- 
 body and having them glad to see me." 
 
 "You ought to've had more sense." 
 
 "I know," Gordon paused, and then continued list- 
 lessly. "I'm on my own now, you know, and Phil, I 
 can't stand being poor. Then came this dam girl. 
 She sort of fell in love with me for a while and, though I 
 never intended to get so involved, I'd always seem to 
 run into her somewhere. You can imagine the sort 
 of work I was doing for those exporting people — of 
 course, I always intended to draw; do illustrating for 
 magazines; there's a pile of money in it." 
 
 "Why didn't you? You've got to buckle down if 
 you want to make good," suggested Dean with cold 
 formalism. 
 
 "I tried, a little, but my stuff's crude. I've got tal- 
 ent, Phil; I can draw — but I just don't know how. I 
 ought to go to art school and I can't afford it. Well, 
 things came to a crisis about a week ago. Just as I 
 was down to about my last dollar this girl began bother- 
 ing me. She wants some money; claims she can make 
 trouble for me if she doesn't get it." 
 
 "Can she?" 
 
 "I'm afraid she can. That's one reason I lost my 
 job — she kept calling up the office all the time, and that 
 
MAY DAY 67 
 
 was sort of the last straw down there. She's got a 
 letter all written to send to my family. Oh, she's got 
 me, all right. I've got to have some money for her." 
 
 There was an awkward pause. Gordon lay very still, 
 his hands clenched by his side. 
 
 "I'm all in," he continued, his voice trembling. "I'm 
 half crazy, Phil. If I hadn't known you were coming 
 East, I think I'd have killed myself. I want you to 
 lend me three hundred dollars." 
 
 Dean's hands, which had been patting his bare ankles, 
 were suddenly quiet — and the curious uncertainty play- 
 ing between the two became taut and strained. 
 
 After a second Gordon continued: 
 
 "I've bled the family until I'm ashamed to ask for 
 another nickel." 
 
 Still Dean made no answer. 
 
 "Jewel says she's got to have two himdred dollars." 
 
 "Tell her where she can go." 
 
 "Yes, that sounds easy, but she's got a couple of 
 drunken letters I wrote her. Unfortunately she's not 
 at all the flabby sort of person you'd expect." 
 
 Dean made an expression of distaste. 
 
 "I can't stand that sort of woman. You ought to 
 have kept away." 
 
 "I know," admitted Gordon wearily. 
 
 "You've got to look at things as they are. If you 
 haven't got money you've got to work and stay away 
 from women." 
 
 "That's easy for you to say," began Gordon, his eyes 
 narrowing. "You've got all the money in the world." 
 
 "I most certainly have not. My family keep dam 
 close tab on what I spend. Just because I have a little 
 leeway I have to be extra careful not to abuse it." 
 
 He raised the blind and let in a further flood of sun- 
 shine. 
 
68 TALES OF THE JAZZ AGE 
 
 "I'm no prig, Lord knows," he went on deliberately. 
 "I like pleasure — and I like a lot of it on a vacation 
 like this, but you're — ^you're in awful shape. I never 
 heard you talk just this way before. You seem to be 
 sort of bankrupt — ^morally as well as financially." 
 
 "Don't they usually go together ?" 
 
 Dean shook his head impatiently. 
 
 "There's a regular aura about you that I don't under- 
 stand. It's a sort of evil." 
 
 "It's an air of worry and poverty and sleepless 
 nights," said Gordon, rather defiantly. 
 
 "I don't know." 
 
 " Oh, I admit I'm depressing. I depress myself. But, 
 my God, Phil, a week's rest and a new suit and some 
 ready money and I'd be like — ^like I was. Phil, I can 
 draw like a streak, and you know it. But half the time 
 I haven't had the money to buy decent drawing ma- 
 terials — and I can't draw when I'm tired and discour- 
 aged and all in. With a little ready money I can take 
 a few weeks off and get started." 
 
 "How do I know you wouldn't use it on some other 
 woman ? " 
 
 "Why rub it in?" said Gordon quietly. 
 
 "I'm not rubbing it in. I hate to see you this way." 
 
 "Will you lend me the money, Phil ?" 
 
 "I can't decide right off. That's a lot of money and 
 it'll be dam inconvenient for me." 
 
 "It'll be hell for me if you can't — I know I'm whining, 
 and it's all my own fault but — that doesn't change it." 
 
 "When could you pay it back?" 
 
 This was encouraging. Gordon considered. It was 
 probably wisest to be frank. 
 
 "Of course, I could promise to send it back next 
 month, but — I'd better say three months. Just as 
 soon as I start to sell drawings." 
 
MAY DAY 69 
 
 "How do I know you'll sell any drawings ?" 
 
 A new hardness in Dean's voice sent a faint chill of 
 doubt over Gordon. Was it possible that he wouldn't 
 get the money ? 
 
 "I supposed you had a little confidence in me." 
 
 "I did have — ^but when I see you like this I begin to 
 wonder." 
 
 "Do you suppose if I wasn't at the end of my rope 
 I'd come to you like this ? Do you think I'm enjoying 
 it ? " He broke oflf and bit his lip, feeling that he had 
 better subdue the rising anger in his voice. After all, 
 he was the suppliant. 
 
 "You seem to manage it pretty easily," said Dean 
 angrily. "You put me in the position where, if I don't 
 lend it to you, I'm a sucker — oh, yes, you do. And let 
 me tell you it's no easy thing for me to get hold of three 
 hundred dollars. My income isn't so big but that a 
 slice like that won't play the deuce with it." 
 
 He left his chair and began to dress, choosing his 
 clothes carefully. Gordon stretched out his arms and 
 clenched the edges of the bed, fighting back a de- 
 sire to cry out. His head was splitting and whirring, 
 his mouth was dry and bitter and he could feel the fever 
 in his blood resolving itself into inniunerable regular 
 counts like a slow dripping from a roof. 
 
 Dean tied his tie precisely, brushed his eyebrows, and 
 removed a piece of tobacco from his teeth with solemnity. 
 Next he filled his cigarette case, tossed the empty box 
 thoughtfully into the waste basket, and settled the case 
 in his vest pocket. 
 
 "Had breakfast?" he demanded. 
 
 "No; I don't eat it any more." 
 
 "Well, we'll go out and have some. We'll decide 
 about that money later. I'm sick of the subject. I 
 came East to have a good time. 
 
70 - TALES OF THE JAZZ AGE 
 
 "Let's go over to the Yale Club," he continued 
 moodily, and then added with an implied reproof: 
 "You've given up your job. You've got nothing else 
 to do." 
 
 "I'd have a lot to do if I had a little money," said 
 Crordon pointedly. 
 
 "Oh, for Heaven's sake drop the subject for a while ! 
 No point in glooming on my whole trip. Here, here's 
 some money." 
 
 He took a five-dollar bill from his wallet and tossed 
 it over to Gordon, who folded it carefully and put it 
 in his pocket. There was an added spot of color in 
 his cheeks, an added glow that was not fever. For 
 an instant before they turned to go out their eyes met 
 and in that instant each found something that made 
 him lower his own glance quickly. For in that instant 
 they quite suddenly and definitely hated each other. 
 
 n 
 
 Fifth Avenue and Forty-fourth Street swarmed with 
 the noon crowd. The wealthy, happy sun glittered in 
 transient gold through the thick windows of the smart 
 shops, lighting upon mesh bags and purses and strings 
 of pearls in gray velvet cases; upon gaudy feather fans of 
 many colors; upon the laces and silks of expensive 
 dresses; upon the bad paintings and the fine period 
 furniture in the elaborate show rooms of interior deco- 
 rators. 
 
 Working-girls, in pairs and groups and swarms, 
 loitered by these windows, choosing their future boudoirs 
 from some resplendent display which included even a 
 man's silk pajamas laid domestically across the bed. 
 They stood in front of the jewelry stores and picked 
 
MAY DAY 71 
 
 out their engagement rings, and their wedding rings 
 and their platinum wrist watches, and then drifted on 
 to inspect the feather fans and opera cloaks; meanwhile 
 digesting the sandwiches and sundaes they had eaten 
 for lunch. 
 
 All through the crowd were men in uniform, sailors 
 from the great fleet anchored in the Hudson, soldiers 
 with divisional insignia from Massachusetts to Cali- 
 fornia, wanting fearfully to be noticed, and finding the 
 great city thoroughly fed up with soldiers unless they 
 were nicely massed into pretty formations and uncom- 
 fortable under the weight of a pack and rifle. 
 
 Through this medley Dean and Gordon wandered; 
 the former interested, made alert by the display of hu- 
 manity at its frothiest and gaudiest; the latter reminded 
 of how often he had been one of the crowd, tired, cas- 
 ually fed, overworked, and dissipated. To Dean the 
 struggle was significant, young, cheerful; to Gordon it 
 was dismal, meaningless, endless. 
 
 In the Yale Club they met a group of their former 
 classmates who greeted the visiting Dean vociferously. 
 Sitting in a semicircle of lounges and great chairs, they 
 had a highball all around. 
 
 Gordon found the conversation tiresome and intermin- 
 able. They lunched together en masse, warmed with 
 liquor as the afternoon began. They were all going to 
 the Gamma Psi dance that night — ^it promised to be the 
 best party since the war. 
 
 "Edith Bradin's coming," said some one to Gordon. 
 ' 'Didn't she used to be an old flame of yours ? Aren't 
 j'ou both from Harrisburg?" 
 
 "Yes." He tried to change the subject. "I see her 
 brother occasionally. He's sort of a socialistic nut. 
 iiuns a paper or something here in New York." 
 
72 TALES OF THE JAZZ AGE 
 
 "Not like his gay sister, eh?" continued his eager 
 informant. "Well, she's coming to-night with a junior 
 named Peter Himmel." 
 
 (jordon was to meet Jewel Hudson at eight o'clock — 
 he had promised to have some money for her. Several 
 times he glanced nervously at his wrist watch. At four, 
 to his relief, Dean rose and announced that he was going 
 over to Rivers Brothers to buy some collars and ties. 
 But as they left the Club another of the party joined 
 them, to Gordon's great dismay. Dean was in a jovial 
 mood now, happy, expectant of the evening's party, 
 faintly hilarious. Over in Rivers' he chose a dozen 
 neckties, selecting each one after long consultations with 
 the other man. Did he think narrow ties were com- 
 ing back ? And wasn't it a shame that Rivers couldn't 
 get any more Welsh Margotson collars ? There never 
 was a collar like the " Covington." 
 
 Gordon was in something of a panic. He wanted 
 the money immediately. And he was now inspired 
 also with a vague idea of attending the Gamma Psi 
 dance. He wanted to see Edith — Edith whom he hadn't 
 met since one romantic night at the Harrisburg Country 
 Club just before he went to France. The affair had died, 
 drowned in the turmoil of the war and quite forgotten 
 in the arabesque of these three months, but a picture 
 of her, poignant, debonnaire, immersed in her own in- 
 consequential chatter, recurred to him unexpectedly 
 and brought a htmdred memories with it. It was 
 Edith's face that he had cherished through college with 
 a sort of detached yet affectionate admiration. He 
 had loved to draw her — around his room had been ? 
 dozen sketches of her — ^playing golf, swimming — h 
 could draw her pert, arresting profile with his eyes shut. 
 
 They left Rivers' at five-thirty and paused for a mo- 
 ment on the sidewalk. 
 
MAY DAY 73 
 
 "WeU/' said Dean genially, "I'm aU set now. Think 
 I'll go back to the hotel and get a shave, haircut, and 
 massage." 
 
 "Good enough," said the other man, "I think I'll 
 join you." 
 
 Gordon wondered if he was to be beaten after aU. 
 With difficulty he restrained himself from turning to 
 the man and snarling out, "Go on away, damn you!" 
 In despair he suspected that perhaps Dean had spoken 
 to him, was keeping him along in order to avoid a dis- 
 pute about the money. 
 
 They went into the Biltmore — a Biltmore alive with 
 girls — mostly from the West and South, the stellar debu- 
 tantes of many cities gathered for the dance of a famous 
 fraternity of a famous university. But to Gordon 
 they were faces in a dream. He gathered together his 
 forces for a last appeal, was about to come out with he 
 knew not what, when Dean suddenly excused him- 
 self to the other man and taking Gordon's arm led him 
 aside. 
 
 "Gordy," he said quickly, "I've thought the whole 
 thing over carefully and I've decided that I can't lend 
 you that money. I'd like to oblige you, but I don't 
 feel I ought to — ^it'd put a crimp in me for a month." 
 
 Gordon, watching him dully, wondered why he had 
 never before noticed how much those upper teeth pro- 
 jected. 
 
 " — ^I'm mighty sorry, Gordon," continued Dean, 
 "but that's the way it is." 
 
 He took out his wallet and deliberately counted out 
 seventy-five doUars in bills. 
 
 "Here," he said, holding them out, "here's seventy- 
 five; that makes eighty all together. That's all the 
 actual cash I have with me, besides what I'll actually 
 spend on the trip." 
 
74 TALES OF THE JAZZ AGE 
 
 Gordon raised his clenched hand automatically, 
 opened it as though it were a tongs he was holding, 
 and clenched it again on the money. 
 
 "I'll see you at the dance," continued Dean. "I've 
 got to get along to the barber shop." 
 
 "So-long," said Gordon in a strained and husky 
 voice. 
 
 "So-long." 
 
 Dean began to smile, but seemed to change his mind. 
 He nodded briskly and disappeared. 
 
 But Gordon stood there, his handsome face awry 
 with distress, the roll of bills clenched tightly in his 
 hand. Then, blinded by sudden tears, he stumbled 
 clumsily down the Biltmore steps. 
 
 in 
 
 About nine o'clock of the same night two human 
 beings came out of a cheap restaurant in Sixth Avenue. 
 They were ugly, ill-nourished, devoid of all except the 
 very lowest form of intelligence, and without even that 
 animal exuberance that in itself brings color into life; 
 they were lately vermin-ridden, cold, and hungry in a 
 dirty town of a strange land; they were poor, friendless; 
 tossed as driftwood from their births, they would be 
 tossed as driftwood to their deaths. They were dressed 
 in the uniform of the United States Army, and on the 
 shoulder of each was the insignia of a drafted division 
 from New Jersey, landed three days before. 
 
 The taller of the two was named Carrol Key, a name 
 hinting that in his veins, however thinly diluted by 
 generations of degeneration, ran blood of some poten- 
 tiality. But one could stare endlessly at the long, chin- 
 less face, the dull, watery eyes, and high cheek-bones, 
 without finding a suggestion of either ancestral worth 
 or native resourcefulness. 
 
MAY DAY 75 
 
 His companion was swart and bandy-legged, with 
 rat-eyes and a much-broken hooked nose. His defiant 
 air was obviously a pretense, a weapon of protection 
 borrowed from that world of snarl and snap, of physi- 
 cal bluff and physical menace, in which he had always 
 lived. His name was Gus Rose. 
 
 Leaving the cafe they sauntered down Sixth Avenue, 
 wielding toothpicks with great gusto and complete de- 
 tachment. 
 
 "Where to?" asked Rose, in a tone which implied 
 that he would not be surprised if Key suggested the 
 South Sea Islands. 
 
 "What you say we see if we can getta holda some 
 liquor ? " Prohibition was not yet. The ginger in the 
 suggestion was caused by the law forbidding the selling 
 of liquor to soldiers. 
 
 Rose agreed enthusiastically. 
 
 "I got an idea," continued Key, after a moment's 
 thought, "I got a brother somewhere." 
 
 "In New York?" 
 
 "Yeah. He's an old fella." He meant that he was 
 an elder brother. "He's a waiter in a hash joint." 
 
 "Maybe he can get us some." 
 
 "I'll say he can !" 
 
 "B'lieve me, I'm goin' to get this dam uniform off 
 me to-morra. Never get me in it again, neither. I'm 
 goin' to get me some regular clothes." 
 
 "Say, maybe I'm not." 
 
 As their combined finances were something less than 
 five dollars, this intention can be taken largely as a 
 pleasant game of words, harmless and consoling. It 
 seemed to please both of them, however, for they rein- 
 forced it with chuckling and mention of personages 
 high in biblical circles, adding such further emphasis 
 as "Oh, boy!" "You know!" and "I'll say so!" re- 
 peated many times over. 
 
76 TALES OF THE JAZZ AGE 
 
 The entire mental pabulum of these two men con- 
 sisted of an offended nasal comment extended through 
 the years upon the institution — army, business, or poor- 
 house — ^which kept them alive, and toward their im- 
 mediate superior in that institution. Until that very 
 morning the institution had been the "government" 
 and the immediate superior had been the "Cap'n" — 
 from these two they had glided out and were now in the 
 vaguely uncomfortable state before they should adopt 
 their next bondage. They were uncertain, resentful, 
 and somewhat ill at ease. This they hid by pretending 
 an elaborate relief at being out of the army, and by 
 assuring each other that military discipline should never 
 again rule their stubborn, liberty-loving wiUs. Yet, 
 as a matter of fact, they would have felt more at home 
 in a prison than in this new-found and unquestionable 
 freedom. 
 
 Suddenly Key increased his gait. Rose, looking up 
 and following his glance, discovered a crowd that was 
 collecting fifty yards down the street. Key chuckled 
 and began to run in the direction of the crowd; Rose 
 thereupon also chuckled and his short bandy legs 
 twinkled beside the long, awkward strides of his com- 
 panion. 
 
 Reaching the outskirts of the crowd they immediately 
 became an indistinguishable part of it. It was com- 
 posed of ragged civilians somewhat the worse for liquor, 
 and of soldiers representing many divisions and many 
 stages of sobriety, all clustered around a gesticulating 
 little Jew with long black whiskers, who was waving his 
 arms and delivering an excited but succinct harangue. 
 Key and Rose, having wedged themselves into the 
 approximate parquet, scrutinized him with acute suspi- 
 cion, as his words penetrated their common conscious- 
 ness. 
 
MAY DAY 77 
 
 " — ^What have you got outa the war ?" he was crying 
 fiercely. "Look arounja, look arounja! Are you rich ? 
 Have you got a lot of money offered you ? — no; you're 
 lucky if you're alive and got both your legs; you're 
 lucky if you came back an' find your wife ain't gone 
 off with some other fella that had the money to buy 
 himself out of the war! That's when you're lucky! 
 Who got anything out of it except J. P. Morgan an' 
 JohnD. Rockerfeller?" 
 
 At this point the little Jew's oration was interrupted 
 by the hostile impact of a fist upon the point of his 
 bearded chin and he toppled backward to a sprawl on 
 the pavement. 
 
 "God damn Bolsheviki!" cried the big soldier- 
 blacksmith who had delivered the blow. There was a 
 rumble of approval, the crowd dosed in nearer. 
 
 The Jew staggered to his feet, and immediately went 
 down again before a half-dozen reaching-in fists. This 
 time he stayed down, breathing heavily, blood oozing 
 from his lip where it was cut within and without. 
 
 There was a riot of voices, and in a minute Rose and 
 Key found themselves flowing with the jumbled crowd 
 down Sixth Avenue under the leadership of a thin civil- 
 ian in a slouch hat and the brawny soldier who had sum- 
 marily ended the oration. The crowd had marvellously 
 swollen to fomaidable proportions and a stream of more 
 non-committal citizens followed it along the sidewalks 
 lending their moral support by intermittent huzzas. 
 
 "Where we goin'?" yelled Key to the man nearest 
 him. 
 
 His neighbor pointed up to the leader in the slouch 
 hat. 
 
 "That guy knows where there's a lot of 'em ! We're 
 goin' to show 'em 1 " 
 
 "We're goin' to show 'em!" whispered Key delight- 
 
78 TALES OF THE JAZZ AGE 
 
 edly to Rose, who repeated the phrase rapturously to 
 a man on the other side. 
 
 Down Sixth Avenue swept the procession, joined here 
 and there by soldiers and marines, and now and then by 
 civilians, who came up with the inevitable cry that 
 they were just out of the army themselves, as if present- 
 ing it as a card of admission to a newly formed Sporting 
 and Amusement Club. 
 
 Then the procession swerved down a cross street and 
 headed for Fifth Avenue and the word filtered here and 
 there that they were bound for a Red meeting at Tolli- 
 ver Hall. 
 
 "Where is it?" 
 
 The question went up the line and a moment later 
 the answer floated back. Tolliver Hall was down on 
 Tenth Street. There was a bunch of other sojers who 
 was goin' to break it up and was down there now ! 
 
 But Tenth Street had a faraway sound and at the 
 word a general groan went up and a score of the pro- 
 cession dropped out. Among these were Rose and Key, 
 who slowed down to a saunter and let the more enthusi- 
 astic sweep on by. 
 
 "I'd rather get some liquor," said Key as they halted 
 and made their way to the sidewalk amid cries of "Shell 
 hole!" and "Quitters!" 
 
 "Does your brother work around here ?" asked Rose, 
 assuming the air of one passing from the superficial to 
 the eternal. 
 
 "He oughta," replied Key. "I ain't seen him for 
 a coupla years. I been out to Pennsylvania since. 
 Maybe he don't work at night anyhow. It's right along 
 here. He can get us some o'right if he ain't gone." 
 
 They found the place after a few minutes' patrol of 
 the street — a shoddy tablecloth restaurant between Fifth 
 Avenue and Broadway. Here Key went inside to inquire 
 
MAY DAY 79 
 
 for his brother George, while Rose waited on the side- 
 walk. 
 
 "He ain't here no more," said Key emerging. "He's 
 a waiter up to DeLmonico's." 
 
 Rose nodded wisely, as if he'd expected as much. One 
 should not be surprised at a capable man changing jobs 
 occasionally. He knew a waiter once — there ensued a 
 long conversation as they walked as to whether waiters 
 made more in actual wages than in tips — it was decided 
 that it depended on the social tone of the joint wherein 
 the waiter labored. After having given each other 
 vivid pictures of millionaires dining at Delmonico's 
 and throwing away fifty-dollar bills after their first 
 quart of champagne, both men thought privately of 
 becoming waiters. In fact, Key's narrow brow was se- 
 creting a resolution to ask his brother to get him a 
 job. 
 
 "A waiter can drink up aU the champagne those 
 fellas leave in bottles," suggested Rose with some relish, 
 and then added as an afterthought, "Oh, boy!" 
 
 By the time they reached Delmonico's it was half 
 past ten, and they were surprised to see a stream of taxis 
 driving up to the door one after the other and emitting 
 marvelous, hatless young ladies, each one attended by a 
 stiff young gentleman in evening clothes. 
 
 "It's a party," said Rose with some awe. "Maybe 
 we better not go in. He'U be busy." 
 
 "No, he won't. He'll be o'right." 
 
 After some hesitation they entered what appeared to 
 them to be the least elaborate door and, indecision 
 falUng upon them immediately, stationed themselves 
 nervously in an inconspicuous comer of the small din- 
 ing-room in which they found themselves. They took 
 off their caps and held them in their hands. A cloud 
 of gloom feU upon them and both started when a 
 
8o TALES OF THE JAZZ AGE 
 
 door at one end of the room crashed open, emitting a 
 comet-like waiter who streaked across the floor and 
 vanished through another door on the other side. 
 
 There had been three of these lightning passages be- 
 fore the seekers mustered the acumen to hail a waiter. 
 He turned, looked at them suspiciously, and then ap- 
 proached with soft, catlike steps, as if prepared at any 
 moment to turn and flee. 
 
 "Say," began Key, "say, do you know my brother? 
 He's a waiter here." 
 
 "His name is Key," annotated Rose. 
 
 Yes, the waiter knew Key. He was up-stairs, he 
 thought. There was a big dance going on in the main 
 ballroom. He'd tell him. 
 
 Ten minutes later George Key appeared and greeted 
 his brother with the utmost suspicion; his first and 
 most natural thought being that he was going to be 
 asked for money. 
 
 George was tall and weak chinned, but there his re- 
 semblance to his brother ceased. The waiter's eyes 
 were not dull, they were alert and twinkling, and his 
 manner was suave, in-door, and faintly superior. They 
 exchanged formalities. George was married and had 
 three children. He seemed fairly interested, but not 
 impressed by the news that Carrol had been abroad in 
 the army. This disappointed Carrol. 
 
 "George," said the younger brother, these ameni- 
 ties having been disposed of, "we want to get some 
 booze, and they won't sell us none. Can you get 
 us some ? " 
 
 George considered. 
 
 "Sure. Maybe I can. It may be half an hour, 
 though." 
 
 "All right," agreed Carrol, "we'll wait." 
 
 At this Rose started to sit down in a convenient chair, 
 but was hailed to his feet by the indignant George. 
 
MAY DAY 8i 
 
 "Hey! Watch out, you! Can't sit down here! 
 This room's all set for a twelve o'clock banquet." 
 
 "I ain't goin' to hurt it," said Rose resentfiJly. 
 "I been through the delouser." 
 
 "Never mind," said George sternly, "if the head 
 waiter seen me here talkin' he'd romp all over me." 
 
 "Oh." 
 
 The mention of the head waiter was full explanation 
 to the other two; they fingered their overseas caps ner- 
 vously and waited for a suggestion. 
 
 "I tell you," said George, after a pause, "I got a 
 place you can wait; you just come here with me." 
 
 They followed him out the far door, through a de- 
 serted pantry and up a pair of dark winding stairs, 
 emerging finally into a small room chiefly furnished by 
 piles of pails and stacks of scrubbing brushes, and il- 
 luminated by a single dim electric light. There he left 
 them, after soliciting two dollars and agreeing to re- 
 turn in half an hour with a quart of whiskey. 
 
 "George is makin' money, I bet," said Key gloomily 
 as he seated himself on an inverted pail. "I bet he's 
 making fifty dollars a week." 
 
 Rose nodded his head and spat. 
 
 "I bet he is, too." 
 
 "What'd he say the dance was of ?" 
 
 "A lot of college fellas. Yale College." 
 
 They both nodded solenmly at each other. 
 
 "Wonder where that crowda sojers is now?" 
 
 "I don't know. I know that's too damn long to walk 
 for me." 
 
 "Me too. You don't catch me walkin' that far." 
 
 Ten minutes later restlessness seized them. 
 
 "I'm goin' to see what's out here," said Rose, stepping 
 cautiously toward the other door. 
 
 It was a swinging door of green baize and he pushed 
 it open a cautious inch. 
 
82 TALES OF THE JAZZ AGE 
 
 "See anything?" 
 
 For answer Rose drew in his breath sharply. 
 
 "Doggone! Here's some liquor I'll say!" 
 
 "Liquor?" 
 
 Key Joined Rose at the door, and looked eagerly. 
 
 "I'll tell the world that's liquor," he said, after a mo- 
 ment of concentrated gazing. 
 
 It was a room about twice as large as the one they 
 were in — and in it was prepared a radiant feast of spirits. 
 There were long walls of alternating bottles set along 
 two white covered tables; whiskey, gin, brandy, French 
 and Italian vermouths, and orange juice, not to mention 
 an array of syphons and two great empty punch bowls. 
 The room was as yet uninhabited. 
 
 "It's for this dance they're just starting," whispered 
 Key; "hear the violins playin'? Say, boy, I wouldn't 
 mind havin' a dance." 
 
 They closed the door softly and exchanged a glance of 
 mutual comprehension. There was no need of feeling 
 each other out. 
 
 "I'd like to get my hands on a coupla those bottles," 
 said Rose emphatically. 
 
 "Me too." 
 
 "Do you suppose we'd get seen ?" 
 
 Key considered. 
 
 "Maybe we better wait tUl they start drinkin' 'em. 
 They got 'em all laid out now, and they know how many 
 of them there are." 
 
 They debated this point for several minutes. Rose 
 was all for getting his hands on a bottle now and tuck- 
 ing it under his coat before any one came into the room. 
 Key, however, advocated caution. He was afraid he 
 might get his brother in trouble. If they waited till 
 some of the bottles were opened it'd be all right to take 
 
MAY DAY 83 
 
 one, and everybody'd think it was one of the college 
 fellas. 
 
 While they were still engaged in argument George 
 Key hurried through the room and, barely grunting at 
 them, disappeared by way of the green baize door. A 
 minute later they heard several corks pop, and then the 
 sound of cracking ice and splashing liquid. George was 
 mixing the punch. 
 
 The soldiers exchanged delighted grins. 
 
 "Oh, boy!" whispered Rose. 
 
 George reappeared. 
 
 "Just keep low, boys," he said quickly. "I'll have 
 your stuff for you in five minutes." 
 
 He disappeared through the door by which he had come. 
 
 As soon as his footsteps receded down the stairs. Rose, 
 after a cautious look, darted into the room of delights 
 and reappeared with a bottle in his hand. 
 
 "Here's what I say," he said, as they sat radiantly 
 digesting their first drink. "We'll wait till he comes up, 
 and we'll ask him if we can't just stay here and drink 
 what he brings us — see. We'U tell him we haven't got 
 any place to drink it — see. Then we can sneak in 
 there whenever there ain't nobody in that there room 
 and tuck a bottle under our coats. We'll have enough 
 to last us a coupla days — see ? " 
 
 "Sure," agreed Rose enthusiastically. "Oh, boy! 
 And if we want to we can sell it to sojers any time we 
 want to." 
 
 They were silent for a moment thinking rosily of 
 this idea. Then Key reached up and unhooked the 
 collar of his O. D. coat. 
 
 "It's hot in here, ain't it?" 
 
 Rose agreed earnestly. 
 
 "Hot as heU." 
 
84 TALES OF THE JAZZ AGE 
 
 IV 
 
 She was still quite angry when she came out of the 
 dressing-room and crossed the intervening parlor of po- 
 liteness that opened onto the hall — angry not so much 
 at the actual happening which was, after all, the merest 
 commonplace of her social existence, but because it 
 had occurred on this particular night. She had no 
 quarrel with herself. She had acted with that correct 
 mixture of dignity and reticent pity which she al- 
 ways employed. She had succinctly and deftly snubbed 
 him. 
 
 It had happened when their taxi was leaving the Bilt- 
 more — ^hadn't gone half a block. He had lifted his right 
 arm awkwardly — she was on his right side — and at- 
 tempted to settle it snugly around the crimson fur- 
 trimmed opera cloak she wore. This in itself had been 
 a mistake. It was inevitably more graceful for a yoimg 
 man attempting to embrace a young lady of whose 
 acquiescence he was not certain, to first put his far arm 
 around her. It avoided that awkward movement of 
 raising the near arm. 
 
 His second faux pas was unconscious. She had spent 
 the afternoon at the hairdresser's; the idea of any ca- 
 lamity overtaking her hair was extremely repugnant — 
 yet as Peter made his unfortunate attempt the point of 
 his elbow had just faintly brushed it. That was his 
 second faux pas. Two were quite enough. 
 
 He had begun to murmur. At the first murmur she 
 had decided that he was nothing but a college boy — 
 Edith was twenty-two, and anyhow, this dance, first 
 of its kind since the war, was reminding her, with the 
 accelerating rhythm of its associations, of something 
 else — of another dance and another man, a man for 
 whom her feelings had been little more than a sad-eyed, 
 
MAY DAY 8s 
 
 adolescent mooniness. Edith Bradin was falling in 
 love with her recollection of Gordon Sterrett. 
 
 So she came out of the dressing-room at Delmonico's 
 and stood for a second in the doorway looking over the 
 shoulders of a black dress in front of her at the groups 
 of Yale men who flitted like dignified black moths 
 around the head of the stairs. From the room she had 
 left drifted out the heavy fragrance left by the passage 
 to and fro of many scented young beauties — rich per- 
 fumes and the fragile memory-laden dust of fragrant 
 powders. This odor drifting out acquired the tang of 
 cigarette smoke in the hall, and then settled sensuously 
 down the stairs and permeated the ballroom where the 
 Gamma Psi dance was to be held. It was an odor she 
 knew well, exciting, stimulating, restlessly sweet — the 
 odor of a fashionable dance. 
 
 She thought of her own appearance. Her bare arms 
 and shoulders were powdered to a creamy white. She 
 knew they looked very soft and would gleam like milk 
 against the black backs that were to silhouette them to- 
 night,. The hairdressing had been a success; her red- 
 dish mass of hair was piled and crushed and creased to 
 an arrogant marvel of mobile curves. Her lips were 
 finely made of deep carmine; the irises of her eyes were 
 delicate, breakable blue, like china eyes. She was a 
 complete, infinitely delicate, quite perfect thing of 
 beauty, flowing in an even line from a complex coiffure 
 to two smaU slim feet. 
 
 She thought of what she would say to-night at this 
 revel, faintly prestiged already by the sounds of high and 
 low laughter and slippered footsteps, and movements of 
 couples up and down the stairs. She would talk the 
 language she had talked for many years — her line — made 
 up of the current expressions, bits of journalese and col- 
 lege slang strung together into an intrinsic whole, care- 
 
86 TALES OF THE JAZZ AGE 
 
 less, faintly provocative, delicately sentimental. She 
 smiled faintly as she heard a girl sitting on the stairs 
 near her say: "You don't know the half of it, dearie!" 
 
 And as she smiled her anger melted for a moment, 
 and closing her eyes she drew in a deep breath of plea- 
 sure. She dropped her arms to her side until they were 
 faintly touching the sleek sheath that covered and sug- 
 gested her figure. She had never felt her own softness 
 so much nor so enjoyed the whiteness of her own arms. 
 
 "I smell sweet," she said to herself simply, and then 
 came another thought — "I'm made for love." 
 
 She liked the sound of this and thought it again; then 
 in inevitable succession came her new-bom riot of dreams 
 about Gordon. The twist of her imagination which, two 
 months before, had disclosed to her her imguessed 
 desire to see him again, seemed now to have been leading 
 up to this dance, this hour. 
 
 For all her sleek beauty, Edith was a grave, slow- 
 thinking girl. There was a streak in her of that same 
 desire to ponder, of that adolescent idealism that had 
 turned her brother socialist and pacifist. Henry Bradin 
 had left Cornell, where he had been an instructor in 
 economics, and had come to New York to pour the latest 
 cures for incurable evils into the columns of a radical 
 weekly newspaper. 
 
 Edith, less fatuously, would have been content to cure 
 Gordon Sterrett. There was a quality of weakness in 
 Gordon that she wanted to take care of; there was a 
 helplessness in him that she wanted to protect. And 
 she wanted someone she had known a long while, some- 
 one who had loved her a long while. She was a little 
 tired; she wanted to get married. Out of a pile of let- 
 ters, half a dozen pictures and as many memories, and 
 this weariness, she had decided that next time she saw 
 Gordon their relations were going to be changed. She 
 
MAY DAY 87 
 
 would say something that would change them. There 
 was this evening. This was her evening. All evenings 
 were her evenings. 
 
 Then her thoughts were interrupted by a solemn 
 undergraduate with a hurt look and an air of strained 
 formality who presented himself before her and bowed 
 unusually low. It was the man she had come with, 
 Peter Himmel. He was tall and humorous, with horned- 
 rimmed glasses and an air of attractive whimsicality. 
 She suddenly rather disliked him — ^probably because he 
 had not succeeded in kissing her. 
 
 "Well," she began, "are you still furious at me?" 
 
 "Not at all." 
 
 She stepped forward and took his arm. 
 
 "I'm sorry," she said softly. "I don't know why I 
 snapped out that way. I'm in a bum humor to-night 
 for some strange reason. I'm sorry." 
 
 "S'all right," he mumbled, "don't mention it." 
 
 He felt disagreeably embarrassed. Was she rubbing 
 in the fact of his late failure ? 
 
 "It was a mistake," she continued, on the same con- 
 sciously gentle key. "We'll both forget it." For this 
 he hated her. 
 
 A few minutes later they drifted out on the floor while 
 the dozen swaying, sighing members of the specially 
 hired jazz orchestra informed the crowded ballroom 
 that "if a saxophone and me are left alone why then two 
 is com-pan-ee ! " 
 
 A man with a mustache cut in. 
 
 "Hello," he began reprovingly. "You don't remem- 
 ber me." 
 
 "I can't just think of your name," she said lightly — 
 "and I know you so well." 
 
 "I met you up at — " His voice trailed disconso- 
 lately off as a man with very fair hair cut in. Edith 
 
88 TALES OF THE JAZZ AGE 
 
 murmured a conventional "Thanks, loads — cut in later," 
 to the inconnu. 
 
 The very fair man insisted on shaking hands enthusi- 
 astically. She placed him as one of the numerous Jims 
 of her acquaintance — ^last name a mystery. She re- 
 membered even that he had a peculiar rhythm in danc- 
 iog and found as they started that she was right. 
 
 "Going to be here long?" he breathed confidentially. 
 
 She leaned back and looked up at him. 
 
 " Couple of weeks." 
 
 "Where are you?" 
 
 "Biltmore. Call me up some day." 
 
 "I mean it," he assured her. "I will. We'll go to 
 tea." 
 
 "So do I— Do." 
 
 A dark man cut in with intense formality. 
 
 "You don't remember me, do you ?" he said gravely. 
 
 "I should say I do. Your name's Harlan." 
 
 "No-ope. Barlow." 
 
 "Well, I knew there were two syllables anjnivay. 
 You're the boy that played the ukulele so well up at 
 Howard Marshall's house party. 
 
 "I played— but not " 
 
 A man with prominent teeth cut in. Edith inhaled 
 a slight cloud of whiskey. She liked men to have had 
 something to drink; they were so much more cheerful, 
 and appreciative and complimentary — ^much easier to 
 talk to. 
 
 "My name's Dean, Philip Dean," he said cheer- 
 fully. "You don't remember me, I know, but you used 
 to come up to New Haven with a fellow I roomed with 
 senior year, Gordon Sterrett," 
 
 Edith looked up quickly. 
 
 "Yes, I went up with him twice — to the Pump and 
 Slipper and the Junior prom." 
 
MAY DAY 89 
 
 "You've seen him, of course," said Dean carelessly. 
 "He's here to-night. I saw him just a minute ago." 
 
 Edith started. Yet she had felt quite sure he would 
 be here. 
 
 "Why, no, I haven't " 
 
 A fat man with red hair cut in. 
 
 "HeUo, Edith," he began. 
 
 "Why— hello there " 
 
 She slipped, stumbled lightly. 
 
 "I'm sorry, dear," she murmured mechanically. 
 
 She had seen Gordon — Gordon very white and list- 
 less, leaning against the side of a doorway, smoking and 
 looking into the ballroom. Edith could see that his 
 face was thin and wan — that the hand he raised to 
 his lips with a cigarette was trembling. They were 
 dancing quite close to him now. 
 
 " — They invite so dam many extra fellas that you — " 
 the short man was saying. 
 
 "Hello, Gordon," called Edith over her partner's 
 shoulder. Her heart was pounding wildly. 
 
 His large dark eyes were fixed on her. He took a 
 step in her direction. Her partner turned her away — 
 she heard his voice bleating 
 
 " — ^but half the stags get lit and leave before long, 
 so " 
 
 Then a low tone at her side. 
 
 "May I, please?" 
 
 She was dancing suddenly with Gordon; one of his 
 arms was around her; she felt it tighten spasmodically; 
 felt his hand on her back with the fingers spread. Her 
 hand holding the little lace handkerchief was crushed 
 in his. 
 
 "Why Gordon," she began breathlessly. 
 
 "HeUo, Edith." 
 
 She slipped again — was tossed forward by her recov- 
 
go TALES OF THE JAZZ AGE 
 
 eiy until her face touched the black cloth of his dinner 
 coat. She loved him — she knew she loved him — then 
 for a minute there was silence while a strange feeling 
 of uneasiness crept over her. Something was wrong. 
 
 Of a sudden her heart wrenched, and turned over as 
 she realized what it was. He was pitiful and wretched, 
 a little drunk, and miserably tired. 
 
 "Oh " she cried involuntarily. 
 
 His eyes looked down at her. She saw suddenly that 
 they were blood-streaked and rolling uncontrollably. 
 
 "Gordon," she murmured, "we'll sit down; I want to 
 sit down." 
 
 They were nearly in mid-floor, but she had seen two 
 men start toward her from opposite sides of the room, 
 so she halted, seized Gordon's limp hand and led him 
 bumping through the crowd, her mouth tight shut, her 
 face a little pale under her rouge, her eyes trembling 
 with tears. 
 
 She found a place high up on the soft-carpeted stairs, 
 and he sat down heavily beside her. 
 
 "Well," he began, staring at her unsteadily, "I cer- 
 tainly am glad to see you, Edith." 
 
 She looked at him without answering. The effect of 
 this on her was immeasurable. For years she had seen 
 men in various stages of intoxication, from uncles all 
 the way down to chauffeurs, and her feelings had varied 
 from amusement to disgust, but here for the first time 
 she was seized with a new feeling — an unutterable 
 horror. 
 
 "Gordon," she said accusingly and almost crying, 
 "you look like the devil." 
 
 He nodded. "I've had trouble, Edith." 
 
 "Trouble?" 
 
 "All sorts of trouble. Don't you say anything to the 
 family, but I'm all gone to pieces. I'm a mess, Edith." 
 
MAY DAY 91 
 
 His lower lip was sagging. He seemed scarcely to see 
 her. 
 
 "Can't you — can't you," she hesitated, "can't you 
 tell me about it, Gordon? You know I'm always in- 
 terested in you." 
 
 She bit her lip — she had intended to say something 
 stronger, but found at the end that she couldn't bring 
 it out. 
 
 Gordon shook his head dully. "I can't tell you. 
 You're a good woman. I can't tell a good woman the 
 story." 
 
 "Rot," she said, defiantly. "I think it's a perfect 
 insult to call any one a good woman in that way. It's a 
 slam. You've been drinking, Gordon." 
 
 "Thanks." He inclined his head gravely. "Thanks 
 for the information." 
 
 "Why do you drink?" 
 
 "Because I'm so damn miserable." 
 
 "Do you think drinking's going to make it any better ? " 
 
 "What you doing — trying to reform me?" 
 
 "No; I'm trying to help you, Gordon. Can't you 
 tell me about it ? " 
 
 "I'm in an awful mess. Best thing you can do is to 
 pretend not to know me." 
 
 "Why, Gordon?" 
 
 "I'm sorry I cut in on you — its unfair to you. You're 
 pure woman — and all that sort of thing. Here, I'll get 
 some one else to dance with you." 
 
 He rose clumsily to his feet, but she reached up and 
 pulled him down beside her on the stairs. 
 
 "Here, Gordon. You're ridiculous. You're hurting 
 me. You're acting like a — Uke a crazy man " 
 
 "I admit it. I'm a little crazy. Something's wrong 
 with me, Edith. There's something left me. It 
 doesn't matter." 
 
92 TALES OF THE JAZZ AGE 
 
 "It does, tell me." 
 
 "Just that. I was always queer — ^little bit different 
 from other boys. All right in college, but now it's all 
 wrong. Things have been snapping inside me for four 
 months like little hooks on a dress, and it's about to 
 come off when a few more hooks go. I'm very gradu- 
 ally going loony." 
 
 He turned his eyes full on her and began to laugh, 
 and she shrank away from him. 
 
 "What w the matter?" 
 
 "Just me," he repeated. "I'm going loony. This 
 whole place is like a dream to me — this Delmonico's " 
 
 As he talked she saw he had changed utterly. He 
 wasn't at all light and gay and careless — a great leth- 
 argy and discouragement had come over him. Re- 
 vulsion seized her, followed by a faint, surprising bore- 
 dom. His voice seemed to come out of a great void. 
 
 "Edith," he said, "I used to think I was clever, 
 talented, an artist. Now I know I'm nothing. 
 Can't draw, Edith. Don't know why I'm telling you 
 this." 
 
 She nodded absently. 
 
 "I can't draw, I can't do anything. I'm poor as a 
 church mouse." He laughed, bitterly and rather too 
 loud. "I've become a damn beggar, a leech on my 
 friends. I'm a failure. I'm poor as hell." 
 
 Her distaste was growing. She barely nodded this 
 time, waiting for her first possible cue to rise. 
 
 Suddenly Gordon's eyes filled with tears. 
 
 "Edith," he said, turning to her with what was evi- 
 dently a strong effort at self-control, "I can't tell you 
 what it means to me to know there's one person left 
 who's interested in me." 
 
 He reached out and patted her hand, and involun- 
 tarily she drew it away. 
 
MAY DAY 93 
 
 "It's mighty fine of you," he repeated. 
 
 "Well," she said slowly, looking him in the eye, 
 "any one's always glad to see an old friend — but I'm 
 sorry to see you like this, Gordon." 
 
 There was a pause while they looked at each other, 
 and the momentary eagerness in his eyes wavered. She 
 rose and stood looking at him, her face quite expression- 
 less. 
 
 "Shall we dance?" she suggested, coolly. 
 
 — ^Love is fragile — she was thinking — but perhaps the 
 pieces are saved, the things that hovered on lips, that 
 might have been said. The new love words, the tender- 
 nesses learned, are treasured up for the next lover. 
 
 Peter Himmel, escort to the lovely Edith, was unac- 
 customed to being snubbed; having been snubbed, he 
 was hurt and embarrassed, and ashamed of himself. For 
 a matter of two months he had been on special de- 
 livery terms with Edith Bradin, and knowing that the 
 one excuse and explanation of the special delivery letter 
 is its value in sentimental correspondence, he had be- 
 lieved himself quite sure of his ground. He searched 
 in vain for any reason why she should have taken this 
 attitude in the matter of a simple kiss. 
 
 Therefore when he was cut in on by the man with the 
 mustache he went out into the hall and, making up a 
 sentence, said it over to himself several times. Con- 
 siderably deleted, this was it: 
 
 "Well, if any girl ever led a man on and then jolted 
 him, she did — and she has no kick coming if I go out and 
 get beautifully boiled." 
 
 So he walked through the supper room into a small 
 room adjoining it, which he had located earlier in the 
 
94 TALES OF THE JAZZ AGE 
 
 evening. It was a room in which there were several 
 large bowls of punch flanked by many bottles. He 
 took a seat beside the table which held the bottles. ' 
 
 At the second highball, boredom, disgust, the monot- 
 ony of time, the turbidity of events, sank into a vague 
 background before which glittering cobwebs formed. 
 Things became reconciled to themselves, things lay 
 quietly on their shelves; the troubles of the day ar- 
 ranged themselves in trim formation and at his curt 
 wish of dismissal, marched off and disappeared. And 
 with the departure of worry came brilliant, permeating 
 symbolism. Edith became a flighty, negligible girl, 
 not to be worried over; rather to be laughed at. She 
 fitted like a figure of his own dream into the surface 
 world forming about him. He himself became in a 
 measure symbolic, a type of the continent bacchanal, 
 the brilliant dreamer at play. 
 
 Then the symbolic mood faded and as he sipped his 
 third highball his imagination yielded to the warm glow 
 and he lapsed into a state similar to floating on his 
 back in pleasant water. It was at this point that he 
 noticed that a green baize door near him was open 
 about two inches, and that through the aperture a pair 
 of eyes were watching him intently. 
 
 "Hm," murmured Peter calmly. 
 
 The green door closed — and then opened again — a 
 bare half inch this time. 
 
 "Peek-a-boo," murmured Peter. 
 
 The door remained stationary and then he became 
 aware of a series of tense intermittent whispers. 
 
 "One guy." 
 
 "What's he doin'?" 
 
 "He's sittin' lookin'." 
 
 "He better beat it off. We gotta get another li'l* 
 bottle." 
 
MAY DAY 95 
 
 Peter listened while the words filtered into his con- 
 sciousness. 
 
 "Now this," he thought, "is most remarkable." 
 
 He was excited. He was jubilant. He felt that he 
 had stumbled upon a mystery. Affecting an elaborate 
 carelessness he arose and walked around the table — 
 then, turning quickly, pulled open the green door, pre- 
 cipitating Private Rose into the room. 
 
 Peter bowed. 
 
 "How do you do?" he said. 
 
 Private Rose set one foot slightly in front of the other, 
 poised for fight, flight, or compromise. 
 
 "How do you do?" repeated Peter politely. 
 
 "I'm o'right." 
 
 "Can I offer you a drink?" 
 
 Private Rose looked at him searchingly, suspecting 
 possible sarcasm. 
 
 "O'right," he said finally. 
 
 Peter indicated a chair. 
 
 "Sit down." 
 
 ■ "I got a friend," said Rose, "I got a friend in there." 
 He pointed to the green door. 
 
 "By all means let's have him in." 
 
 Peter crossed over, opened the door and welcomed in 
 Private Key, very suspicious and uncertain and guilty. 
 Chairs were found and the three took their seats around 
 the punch bowl. Peter gave them each a highball and 
 offered them a cigarette from his case. They accepted 
 both with some diffidence. 
 
 "Now," continued Peter easily, "may I ask why you 
 gentlemen prefer to loimge away your leisure hours in a 
 room which is chiefly furnished, as far as I can see, with 
 scrubbing brushes. And when the human race has pro- 
 gressed to the stage where seventeen thousand chairs 
 are manufactured on every day except Sunday — " he 
 
96 TALES OF THE JAZZ AGE 
 
 paused. Rose and Key regarded him vacantly. "Will 
 you tell me," went on Peter, "why you choose to rest 
 yourselves on articles intended for the transportation 
 ot water from one place to another ? " 
 
 At this point Rose contributed a grunt to the con- 
 versation. 
 
 "And lastly," finished Peter, "will you tell me why, 
 when you are in a building beautifully hung with enor- 
 mous candelabra, you prefer to spend these evening 
 hours imder one anemic electric light ? " 
 
 Rose looked at Key; Key looked at Rose. They 
 laughed; they laughed uproariously; they found it was 
 impossible to look at each other without laughing. 
 But they were not laughing with this man — they were 
 laughing at Mm. To them a man who talked after this 
 fashion was either raving drunk or raving crazy. 
 
 "You are Yale men, I presume," said Peter, finishing 
 his highball and preparing another. 
 
 They laughed again. 
 
 "Na-ah." 
 
 "So? I thought perhaps you might be members of 
 that lowly section of the university known as the Shef- 
 field Scientific School." 
 
 "Na-ah." 
 
 "Hm. Well, that's too bad. No doubt you are 
 Harvard men, anxious to preserve your incognito in 
 this — this paradise of violet blue, as the newspapers 
 say." 
 
 "Na-ah," said Key scornfully, "we was just waitin' 
 for somebody." 
 
 "Ah," exclaimed Peter, rising and filling their glasses, 
 "very interestin'. Had a date with a scrublady, eh ?" 
 
 They both denied this indignantly. 
 
 "It's all right," Peter reassured them, "don't apolo- 
 gize. A scrublady's as good as any lady in the world. 
 
MAY DAY 97 
 
 Kipling says 'Any lady and Judy O'Grady under the 
 skin.'" 
 
 "Sure," said Key, winking broadly at Rose. 
 
 "My case, for instance," continued Peter, finishing 
 his glass. " I got a girl up here that's spoiled. Spoildest 
 darn girl I ever saw. Refused to kiss me; no reason 
 whatsoever. Led me on deliberately to think sure I 
 want to kiss you and then plunk! Threw me over! 
 What's the younger generation comin' to ? " 
 
 "Say tha's hard luck," said Key— "that's awful hard 
 luck." 
 
 "Oh, boy!" said Rose. 
 
 "Have another?" said Peter. 
 
 "We got in a sort of fight for a while," said Key after 
 a pause, "but it was too far away." 
 
 "A fight?— tha's stuff!" said Peter, seating himself 
 unsteadily. "Fight 'em all! I was in the army." 
 
 "This was with a Bolshevik fella." 
 
 "Tha's stuff!" exclaimed Peter, enthusiastic. 
 "That's what I say! Kill the Bolshevik! Extermi- 
 nate 'em ! " 
 
 "We're Americuns," said Rose, implying a sturdy, 
 defiant patriotism. 
 
 "Sure," said Peter. "Greatest race in the world! 
 We're all Americuns I Have another." 
 
 They had another. 
 
 VI 
 
 At one o'clock a special orchestra, special even in a 
 day of special orchestras, arrived at Delmonico's, and 
 its members, seating themselves arrogantly around the 
 piano, took up the burden of providing music for the 
 Gamma Psi Fraternity. They were headed by a famous 
 flute-player, distinguished throughout New York for 
 his feat of standing on his head and shimmying with 
 
98 TALES OF THE JAZZ AGE 
 
 his shoulders while he played the latest jazz on his 
 flute. During his performance the lights were extin- 
 guished except for the spotlight on the flute-player and 
 another roving beam that threw flickering shadows and 
 changing kaleidoscopic colors over the massed dancers. 
 
 Edith had danced herself into that tired, dreamy 
 state habitual only with debutantes, a state equivalent 
 to the glow of a noble soul after several long highballs. 
 Her mind floated vaguely on the bosom of her music; 
 her partners changed with the unreality of phantoms 
 under the colorful shifting dusk, and to her present 
 coma it seemed as if days had passed since the dance 
 began. She had talked on many fragmentary subjects 
 with many men. She had been kissed once and made 
 love to six times. Earlier in the evening different under- 
 gjraduates had danced with her, but now, like all the 
 more popular girls there, she had her own entourage — 
 that is, half a dozen gallants had singled her out or 
 were alternating her charms with those of some other 
 chosen beauty; they cut in on her in regular, inevitable 
 succession. 
 
 Several times she had seen Gordon — ^he had been sit- 
 ting a long time on the stairway with his palm to his 
 head, his dull eyes fixed at an infinite speck on the floor 
 before him, very depressed, he looked, and quite drimk — 
 but Edith each time had averted her glance hurriedly. 
 All that seemed long ago; her mind was passive now, 
 her senses were lulled to trance-like sleep; only her feet 
 danced and her voice talked on in hazy sentimental 
 banter. 
 
 But Edith was not nearly so tired as to be incapable 
 of moral indignation when Peter Himmel cut in on her, 
 sublimely and happily drunk. She gasped and looked 
 up at him. 
 
 "Why, Peter 1" 
 
MAY DAY 99 
 
 "I'm a li'l' stewed, Edith." 
 
 "Why, Peter, you're a peach, you are! Don't you 
 think it's a bum way of doing — when you're with me ?" 
 
 Then she smiled unwillingly, for he was looking at 
 her with owlish sentimentality varied with a silly spas- 
 modic smile. 
 
 "Darlin' Edith," he began earnestly, "you know I 
 love you, don't you ?" 
 
 "You tell it well." 
 
 "I love you — and I merely wanted you to kiss me," 
 he added sadly. 
 
 His embarrassment, his shame, were both gone. She 
 was a mos' beautiful girl in whole worl'. Mos' beauti- 
 ful eyes, like stars above. He wanted to 'pologize — 
 firs', for presuming try to kiss her; second, for drinking 
 — but he'd been so discouraged 'cause he had thought 
 she was mad at him 
 
 The red-fat man cut in, and looking up at Edith 
 smiled radiantly. 
 
 "Did you bring any one ?" she asked. 
 
 No. The red-fat man was a stag. 
 
 "Well, would you mind — ^would it be an awful bother 
 for you to — to take me home to-night ? " (this extreme 
 diffidence was a charming affectation on Edith's part — 
 she knew that the red-fat man would immediately dis- 
 solve into a paroxysm of delight). 
 
 "Bother? Why, good Lord, I'd be dam glad to! 
 You know I'd be darn glad to." 
 
 "Thanks loads! You're awfully sweet." 
 
 She glanced at her wrist-watch. It was half-past one. 
 And, as she said "half-past one" to herself, it floated 
 vaguely into her mind that her brother had told her at 
 luncheon that he worked in the o&ce of his newspaper 
 until after one-thirty every evening. 
 
 Edith turned suddenly to her current partner. 
 
loo TALES OF THE JAZZ AGE 
 
 "What street is Delmonico's on, anyway?" 
 
 "Street? Oh, why Fifth Avenue, of course." 
 
 "I mean, what cross street?" 
 
 "Why— let's see— it's on Forty-fourth Street." 
 
 This verified what she had thought. Henry's oflSce 
 must be across the street and just around the comer, 
 and it occurred to her immediately that she might slip 
 over for a moment and surprise him, float in on him, a 
 shimmering marvel in her new crimson opera cloak and 
 "cheer him up." It was exactly the sort of thing Edith 
 revelled in doing — an unconventional, jaunty thing. 
 The idea reached out and gripped at her imagination — 
 after an instant's hesitation she had decided. 
 
 "My hair is just about to tumble entirely down," 
 she said pleasantly to her partner; "would you mind 
 if I go and fix it?" 
 
 "Not at all." 
 
 "You're a peach." 
 
 A few minutes later, wrapped in her crimson opera 
 cloak, she flitted down a side-stairs, her cheeks glowing 
 with excitement at her little adventure. She ran by a 
 couple who stood at the door — a weak-chinned waiter 
 and an over-rouged young lady, in hot dispute — and 
 opening the outer door stepped into the warm May 
 night. 
 
 VII 
 
 The over-rouged young lady followed her with a brief, 
 bitter glance — then turned again to the weak-chinned 
 waiter and took up her argument. 
 
 "You better go up and tell him I'm here," she said 
 defiantly, "or I'll go up myself." 
 
 "No, you don't!" said George sternly. 
 
 The girl smiled sardonically. 
 
 J'Oh, I don't, don't I ? Well, let me tell you I know 
 
MAY DAY loi 
 
 more college fellas and more of 'em know me, and are 
 glad to take me out on a party, than you ever saw in 
 your whole life." 
 
 "Maybe so " 
 
 "Maybe so," she interrupted. "Oh, it's all right for 
 any of 'em like that one that just ran out — God knows 
 where she went — it's all right for them that are asked 
 here to come or go as they like — but when I want to see 
 a friend they have some cheap, ham-slinging, bring-me- 
 a-doughnut waiter to stand here and keep me out." 
 
 "See here," said the elder Key indignantly, "I can't 
 lose my job. Maybe this fella you're taUdn' about 
 doesn't want to see you." 
 
 " Oh, he wants to see me all right." 
 
 "Anyways, how could I find him in all that crowd ?" 
 
 "Oh, he'll be there," she asserted confidently. "You 
 just ask anybody for Gordon Sterrett and they'll point 
 him out to you. They aU know each other, those fellas." 
 
 She produced a mesh bag, and taking out a dollar 
 bill handed it to George. 
 
 "Here," she said, "here's a bribe. You find him and 
 give him my message. You tell him if he isn't here in 
 five minutes I'm coming up." 
 
 George shook his head pessimistically, considered 
 the question for a moment, wavered violently, and then 
 withdrew. 
 
 In less than the allotted time Gordon camedown-stairs. 
 He was drunker than he had been earlier in the evening 
 and in a different way. The liquor seemed to have 
 hardened on him like a crust. He was heavy and lurch- 
 ing — almost incoherent when he talked. 
 
 "'Lo, Jewel," he said thickly. "Came right away. 
 Jewel, I couldn't get that money. Tried my best." 
 
 "Money nothing !" she snapped. "You haven't been 
 near me for ten days. What's the matter ? " 
 
I02 TALES OF THE JAZZ AGE 
 
 He shook his head slowly. 
 
 "Been very low, Jewel. Been sick." 
 
 "Why didn't you tell me if you were sick. I don't 
 care about the money that bad. I didn't start bother- 
 ing you about it at all until you began neglecting me." 
 
 Again he shook his head. 
 
 "Haven't been neglecting you. Not at all." 
 
 "Haven't! You haven't been near me for three 
 weeks, unless you been so dnmk you didn't know what 
 you were doing." 
 
 "Been sick. Jewel," he repeated, turning his eyes 
 upon her wearily. 
 
 "You're well enough to come and play with your 
 society friends here all right. You told me you'd meet 
 me for dinner, and you said you'd have some money for 
 me. You didn't even bother to ring me up." 
 
 "I couldn't get any money." 
 
 "Haven't I just been saying that doesn't matter.? 
 I wanted to see you, Gordon, but you seem to prefer 
 your somebody else." 
 
 He denied this bitterly. 
 
 "Then get your hat and come along," she suggested. 
 
 Gordon hesitated — and she came suddenly close to 
 him and slipped her arms around his neck. 
 
 "Come on with me, Gordon," she said in a half whis- 
 per. "We'll go over to Devineries' and have a drink, 
 and then we can go up to my apartment." 
 
 "I can't. Jewel, " 
 
 "You can," she said intensely. 
 
 "I'm sick as a dog!" 
 
 "Well, then, you oughtn't to stay here and dance." 
 
 With a glance around him in which relief and despair 
 were mingled, Gordon hesitated; then she suddenly 
 pulled him to her and kissed him with soft, pulpy lips. 
 
 "All right," he said heavily. "I'll get my hat. 
 
MAY DAY 103 
 
 VIII 
 
 When Edith came out into the dear blue of the May- 
 night she found the Avenue deserted. The windows of 
 the big shops were dark; over their doors were drawn 
 great iron masks imtil they were only shadowy tombs of 
 the late day's splendor. Glancing down toward Forty- 
 second Street she saw a commingled blur of lights from 
 the all-night restaurants. Over on Sixth Avenue the 
 elevated, a flare of fire, roared across the street between 
 the glimmering parallels of light at the station and 
 streaked along into the crisp dark. But at Forty- 
 fourth Street it was very quiet. 
 
 Pulling her cloak close about her Edith darted across 
 the Avenue. She started nervously as a solitary man 
 passed her and said in a hoarse whisper — "Where bound, 
 kiddo ? " She was reminded of a night in her childhood 
 when she had walked around the block in her pajamas 
 and a dog had howled at her from a mystery-big back 
 yard. 
 
 In a minute she had reached her destination, a two- 
 story, comparatively old building on Forty-fourth, in 
 the upper window of which she thankfully detected a 
 wisp of light. It was bright enough outside for her to 
 make out the sign beside the window — the New York 
 Trumpet. She stepped inside a dark hall and after a 
 second saw the stairs in the corner. 
 
 Then she was in a long, low room furnished with many 
 desks and hung on all sides with file copies of news- 
 papers. There were only two occupants. They were 
 sitting at different ends of the room, each wearing a 
 green eye-shade and writing by a solitary desk light. 
 
 For a moment she stood uncertainly in the doorway, 
 and then both men turned aroimd simultaneously and 
 she recognized her brother. 
 
I04 TALES OF THE JAZZ AGE 
 
 "Why, Edith!" He rose quickly and approached 
 her in surprise, removing his eye-shade. He was tall, 
 lean, and dark, with black, piercing eyes under very thick 
 glasses. They were far-away eyes that seemed always 
 fixed just over the head of the person to whom he was 
 talking. 
 
 He put his hands on her arms and kissed her cheek. 
 
 "What is it?" he repeated in some alarm. 
 
 "I was at a dance across at Delmonico's, Henry," 
 she said excitedly, "and I couldn't resist tearing over 
 to see you." 
 
 "I'm glad you did." His alertness gave way quickly 
 to a habitual vagueness. "You oughtn't to be out 
 alone at night though, ought you ? " 
 
 The man at the other end of the room had been look- 
 ing at them curiously, but at Henry's beckoning gesture 
 he approached. He was loosely fat with little twin- 
 kling eyes, and, having removed his collar and tie, he gave 
 the impression of a Middle- Western farmer on a Sunday 
 afternoon. 
 
 "This is my sister," said Henry. "She dropped in to 
 see me." 
 
 "How do you do?" said the fat man, smiling. "My 
 name's Bartholomew, Miss Bradin. I know your 
 brother has forgotten it long ago." 
 
 Edith laughed politely. 
 
 "Well," he continued, "not exactly gorgeous quarters 
 we have here, are they ? " 
 
 Edith looked around the room. 
 
 "They seem very nice," she replied. "Where do you 
 keep the bombs ? " 
 
 "The bombs?" repeated Bartholomew, laughing. 
 "That's pretty good — the bombs. Did you hear her, 
 Henry ? She wants to know where we keep the bombs. 
 Say, that's pretty good." 
 
 Edith swimg herself onto a vacant desk and sat 
 
MAY DAY los 
 
 dangling her feet over the edge. Her brother took a 
 seat beside her. 
 
 "Well," he asked, absent-mindedly, "how do you 
 like New York this trip ? " 
 
 "Not bad. I'll be over at the Biltmore with the Hoyts 
 until Sunday. Can't you come to luncheon to-morrow ? " 
 
 He thought a moment. 
 
 "I'm especially busy," he objected, "and I hate wo- 
 men in groups." 
 
 "All right," she agreed, unruffled. "Let's you and 
 me have limcheon together." 
 
 "Very well." 
 
 "I'll call for you at twelve." 
 
 Bartholomew was obviously anxious to return to his 
 desk, but apparently considered that it would be rude 
 to leave without some parting pleasantry. 
 
 "Well" — he began awkwardly. 
 
 They both turned to him. 
 
 "Well, we — we had an exciting time earlier in the 
 evening." 
 
 The two men exchanged glances. 
 
 "You should have come earlier," continued Bar- 
 tholomew, somewhat encouraged. "We had a regular 
 vaudeville." 
 
 "Did you really?" 
 
 "A serenade," said Henry. "A lot of soldiers 
 gathered down there in the street and began to yell 
 at the sign." 
 
 "Why.?" she demanded. 
 
 "Just a crowd," said Henry, abstractedly. "All 
 crowds have to howl. They didn't have anybody with 
 much initiative in the lead, or they'd probably have 
 forced their way in here and smashed things up." 
 
 "Yes," said Bartholomew, turning again to Edith, 
 "you should have been here." 
 
 He seemed to consider this a sufficient cue for with- 
 
io6 TALES OF THE JAZZ AGE 
 
 drawal, for he turned abruptly and went back to his 
 desk. 
 
 "Are the soldiers all set against the Socialists?" de- 
 manded Edith of her brother. "I mean do they at- 
 tack you violently and all that .? " 
 
 Henry replaced his eye-shade and yawned. 
 
 "The human race has come a long way," he said 
 casually, "but most of us are throw-backs; the soldiers 
 don't know what they want, or what they hate, or what 
 they like. They're used to acting in large bodies, and 
 they seem to have to make demonstrations. So it hap- 
 pens to be against us. There've been riots all over the 
 city to-night. It's May Day, you see." 
 
 "Was the disturbance here pretty serious?" 
 
 "Not a bit," he said scornfully. "About twenty- 
 five of them stopped in the street about nine o'clock, 
 and began to bellow at the moon." 
 
 "Oh"— She changed the subject. "You're glad 
 to see me, Henry ? " 
 
 "Why, sure." 
 
 "You don't seem to be." 
 
 "I am." 
 
 "I suppose you think I'm a — a waster. Sort of the 
 World's Worst Butterfly," 
 
 Henry laughed. 
 
 "Not at all. Have a good time while you're young. 
 Why ? Do I seem like the priggish and earnest youth ? " 
 
 "No — " She paused, "—but somehow I began 
 thinking how absolutely different the party I'm on is 
 from — from all your purposes. It seems sort of — of 
 incongruous, doesn't it ? — me being at a party like that, 
 and you over here working for a thing that'll make 
 that sort of party impossible ever any more, if your 
 ideas work." 
 
 "I don't think of it that way. You're young, and 
 
MAY DAY 107 
 
 you're acting just as you were brought up to act. Go 
 ahead — have a good time ? " 
 
 Her feet, which had been idly swinging, stopped and 
 her voice dropped a note. 
 
 "I wish you'd — ^you'd come back to Harrisburg and 
 have a good time. Do you feel sure that you're on the 
 right track " 
 
 "You're wearing beautiful stockings," he interrupted. 
 "What on earth are they?" 
 
 "They're embroidered," she replied, glancing down. 
 "Aren't they cunning?" She raised her skirts and 
 xmcovered slim, silk-sheathed calves. "Or do you dis- 
 approve of silk stockings ? " 
 
 He seemed slightly exasperated, bent his dark eyes 
 on her piercingly. 
 
 "Are you trying to make me out as criticizing you in 
 any way, EdilJi ? " 
 
 "Not at aU " 
 
 She paused. Bartholomew had uttered a grunt. She 
 turned and saw that he had left his desk and was stand- 
 ing at the window. 
 
 "What is it?" demanded Henry. 
 
 "People," said Bartholomew, and then after an instant: 
 "Whole jam of them. They're coming fromSixth Avenue." 
 
 "People?" 
 
 The fat man pressed his nose to the pane. 
 
 "Soldiers, by God!" he said emphatically. "I had 
 an idea they'd come back." 
 
 Edith jumped to her feet, and running over joined 
 Bartholomew at the window. 
 
 "There's a lot of them!" she cried excitedly. "Come 
 here, Henry!" 
 
 Henry readjusted his shade, but kept his seat. 
 
 "Hadn't we better turn out the lights?" suggested 
 Bartholomew. 
 
io8 TALES OF THE JAZZ AGE 
 
 "No. They'll go away in a minute." 
 
 "They're not," said Edith, peering from the window. 
 "They're not even thinking of going away. There's 
 more of them coming. Look — there's a whole crowd 
 turning the comer of Sixth Avenue." 
 
 By the yellow glow and blue shadows of the street 
 lamp she could see that the sidewalk was crowded with 
 men. They were mostly in uniform, some sober, some 
 enthusiastically drunk, and over the whole swept an 
 incoherent clamor and shouting. 
 
 Henry rose, and going to the window exposed himself 
 as a long silhouette against the ofl&ce lights. Imme- 
 diately the shouting became a steady yell, and a rattling 
 fusillade of small missiles, comers of tobacco plugs, 
 cigarette-boxes, and even permies beat against the win- 
 dow. The sounds of the racket now began floating up 
 the stairs as the folding doors revolved. 
 
 "They're coming up!" cried Bartholomew. 
 
 Edith turned anxiously to Henry, 
 
 "They're coming up, Henry." 
 
 From down-stairs in the lower hall their cries were 
 now quite audible. ': 
 
 " — God damn Socialists!" 
 
 " Pro-Germans ! Boche-lovers ! " 
 
 "Second floor, front ! Come on !" 
 
 "We'U get the sons " 
 
 The next five minutes passed in a dream. Edith was 
 conscious that the clamor burst suddenly upon the three 
 of them like a cloud of rain, that there was a thunder 
 of many feet on the stairs, that Henry had seized her 
 arm and drawn her back toward the rear of the office. 
 Then the door opened and an overflow of men were 
 forced into the room — not the leaders, but simply those 
 who happened to be in front. 
 
MAY DAY 109 
 
 "Hello, Bo!" 
 
 "Up late, ain't you?" 
 
 "You an' your girl. Damn you!" 
 
 She noticed that two very drunken soldiers had been 
 forced to the front, where they wobbled fatuously — one 
 of them was short and dark, the other was tall and 
 weak of chin. 
 
 Henry stepped forward and raised his hand. 
 
 "Friends!" he said. 
 
 The clamor faded into a momentary stillness, punc- 
 tuated with mutterings. 
 
 "Friends!" he repeated, his far-away eyes fixed over 
 the heads of the crowd, "you're injuring no one but 
 yourselves by breaking in here to-night. Do we look 
 like rich men ? Do we look like Germans ? I ask you 
 in all fairness " 
 
 "Pipe down!" 
 
 "I'Usayyoudo!" 
 
 "Say, who's your lady friend, buddy?" 
 
 A man in civilian clothes, who had been pawing over 
 a table, suddenly held up a newspaper. 
 
 "Here it is ! " he shouted. "They wanted the Germans 
 to win the war ! " 
 
 A new overflow from the stairs was shouldered in and 
 of a sudden the room was full of men all closing around 
 the pale little group at the back. Edith saw that the 
 tall soldier with the weak chin was still in front. The 
 short dark one had disappeared. 
 
 She edged slightly backward, stood close to the open 
 window, through which came a dear breath of cool 
 night air. 
 
 Then the room was a riot. She realized that the sol- 
 diers were surging forward, glimpsed the fat man swing- 
 ing a chair over his head — ^instantly the lights went out, 
 
no TALES OF THE JAZZ AGE 
 
 and she felt the push of warm bodies under rough cloth, 
 and her ears were full of shouting and trampling and 
 hard breathing. 
 
 A figure flashed by her out of nowhere, tottered, was 
 edged sideways, and of a sudden disappeared helplessly 
 out through the open window with a frightened, frag- 
 mentary cry that died staccato on the bosom of the 
 clamor. By the faint light streaming from the build- 
 ing backing on the area Edith had a quick impression 
 that it had been the tall soldier with lie weak chin. 
 
 Anger rose astonishingly in her. She swung her 
 arms wildly, edged blindly toward the thickest of the 
 scuflBing. She heard gnmts, ciurses, the muffled impact 
 of fists. 
 
 "Henry!" she called frantically, "Henry!" 
 
 Then, it was minutes later, she felt suddenly that 
 there were other figures in the room. She heard a 
 voice, deep, bullying, authoritative; she saw yellow 
 rays of light sweeping here and there in the fracas. 
 The cries became more scattered. The scuffling in- 
 creased and then stopped. 
 
 Suddenly the lights were on and the room was full 
 of policemen, clubbing left and right. The deep voice 
 boomed out: 
 
 "Here now 1 Here now ! Here now ! " 
 
 And then: 
 
 "Quiet down and get out ! Here now !" 
 
 The room seemed to empty like a wash-bowl. A 
 policeman fast-grappled in the comer released his hold 
 on his soldier antagonist and started him with a shove 
 toward the door. The deep voice continued. Edith per- 
 ceived now that it came from a buU-necked police cap- 
 tain standing near the door. 
 
 "Here now! This is no way! One of your own sojers 
 got shoved out of the back window an' killed hisself!" 
 
MAY DAY III 
 
 "Henry!" called Edith, "Henry!" 
 
 She beat wildly with her fists on the back of the man 
 in front of her; she brushed between two others; fought, 
 shrieked, and beat her way to a very pale figure sitting 
 on the floor close to a desk. 
 
 "Henry," she cried passionately, "what's the mat- 
 ter? What's the matter? Did they hurt you ?" 
 
 His eyes were shut. He groaned and then looking up 
 said disgustedly 
 
 "They broke my leg. My God, the fools !" 
 
 "Here now ! " called the police captain. "Here now ! 
 Here now!" 
 
 DC 
 
 "Childs', Fifty-ninth Street," at eight o'clock of any 
 morning differs from its sisters by less than the width 
 of their marble tables or the degree of polish on the fry- 
 ing-pans. You will see there a crowd of poor people 
 with sleep in the comers of their eyes, trying to look 
 straight before them at their food so as not to see the 
 other poor people. But Childs', Fifty-ninth, four hours 
 earlier is quite unUke any Childs' restaurant from Port- 
 land, Oregon, to Portland, Maine. Within its pale but 
 sanitary walls one finds a noisy medley of chorus girls, 
 college boys, debutantes, rakes, fiUes de joie — a not un- 
 representative mixture of the gayest of Broadway, and 
 even of Fifth Avenue. 
 
 In the early morning of May the second it was un- 
 usually full. Over the marble-topped tables were bent 
 the excited faces of flappers whose fathers owned in- 
 dividual villages. They were eating buckwheat cakes 
 and scrambled eggs with relish and gusto, an accomplish- 
 ment that it would have been utterly impossible for 
 them to repeat in the same place four hours later. 
 
 Almost the entire crowd were from the Gamma Psi 
 
113 TALES OF THE JAZZ AGE 
 
 dance at Delmonico's except for several chorus girls 
 from a midnight revue who sat at a side table and wished 
 they'd taken off a little more make-up after the show. 
 Here and there a drab, mouse-like figure, desperately 
 out of place, watched the butterflies with a weary, 
 puzzled curiosity. But the drab figure was the excep- 
 tion. This was the morning after May Day, and cele- 
 bration was stiU in the air. 
 
 Gus Rose, sober but a little dazed, must be classed 
 as one of the drab figures. How he had got himself from 
 Forty-fourth Street to Fifty-ninth Street after the riot 
 was only a hazy half-memory. He had seen the body 
 of Carrol Key put in an ambulance and driven off, and 
 then he had started up town with two or three soldiers. 
 Somewhere between Forty-fourth Street and Fifty- 
 ninth Street the other soldiers had met some women 
 and disappeared. Rose had wandered to Columbus 
 Circle and chosen the gleaming lights of Child s' to 
 minister to his craving for coffee and doughnuts. He 
 walked in and sat down. 
 
 All around him floated airy, inconsequential chatter 
 and high-pitched laughter. At first he failed to under- 
 stand, but after a puzzled five minutes he realized that 
 this was the aftermath of some gay party. Here and 
 there a restless, hilarious young man wandered frater- 
 nally and familiarly between the tables, shaking hands 
 indiscriminately and pausing occasionally for a face- 
 tious chat, while excited waiters, bearing cakes and eggs 
 aloft, swore at him silently, and bumped him out of the 
 way. To Rose, seated at the most inconspicuous and 
 least crowded table, the whole scene was a colorful cir- 
 cus of beauty and riotous pleasure. 
 
 He became gradually aware, after a few moments, 
 that the couple seated diagonally across from him, with 
 their backs to the crowd, were not the least interesting 
 
MAY DAY 113 
 
 pair in the room. The man was drunk. He wore a 
 diimer coat with a dishevelled tie and shirt swollen by 
 spillings of water and wine. His eyes, dim and blood- 
 shot, roved imnaturally from side to side. His breath 
 came short between his lips, 
 
 "He's been on a spree!" thought Rose. 
 
 The woman was almost if not quite sober. She was 
 pretty, with dark eyes and feverish high color, and she 
 kept her active eyes fixed on her companion with the 
 alertness of a hawk. From time to time she would lean 
 and whisper intently to him, and he would answer by 
 inclining his head heavUy or by a particularly ghoulish 
 and repellent wink. 
 
 Rose scrutinized them dumbly for some minutes, 
 until the woman gave him a quick, resentful look; then 
 he shifted his gaze to two of the most conspicuously 
 hilarious of the promenaders who were on a protracted 
 circuit of the tables. To his surprise he recognized in 
 one of them the young man by whom he had been so 
 ludicrously entertained at Delmonico's. This started 
 him thinking of Key with a vague sentimentality, not 
 unmixed with awe. Key was dead. He had fallen 
 thirty-five feet and split his skull like a cracked cocoa- 
 nut. 
 
 "He was a dam good guy," thought Rose mourn- 
 fully. "He was a dam good guy, o'right. That was 
 awful hard luck about him." 
 
 The two promenaders approached and started down 
 between Rose's table and the next, addressing friends 
 and strangers alike with jovial familiarity. Suddenly 
 Rose saw the fair-haired one with the prominent teeth 
 stop, look unsteadily at the man and girl opposite, and 
 then begin to move his head disapprovingly from side 
 to side. 
 
 The man with the blood-shot eyes looked up. 
 
114 TALES OF THE JAZZ AGE 
 
 "Gordy," said the promenader with the prominent 
 teeth, "Gordy." 
 
 "Hello," said the man with the stained shirt thickly. 
 
 Prominent Teeth shook his finger pessimistically at 
 the pair, giving the woman a glance of aloof condemna- 
 tion. 
 
 "What'd I tell you Gordy?" 
 
 Gordon stirred in his seat. 
 
 "Go to hell!" he said. 
 
 Dean continued to stand there shaJdng his finger. 
 The woman began to get angry. 
 
 "You go way!" she cried fiercely. "You're drunk, 
 that's what you are ! " 
 
 "So's he," suggested Dean, staying the motion of his 
 finger and pointing it at Gordon. 
 
 Peter Himmel ambled up, owlish now and oratorically 
 inchned. 
 
 "Here now," he began as if called upon to deal with 
 some petty dispute between children. "Wha's all 
 trouble?" 
 
 "You take your friend away," said Jewel tartly. 
 "He's bothering us." 
 
 "What's at?" 
 
 "You heard me!" she said shrilly. "I said to take 
 your drunken friend away." 
 
 Her rising voice rang out above the clatter of the res- 
 taurant and a waiter came hurrying up. 
 
 "You gotta be more quiet !" 
 
 "That fella's drunk," she cried. "He's insulting 
 us." 
 
 "Ah-ha, Gordy," persisted the accused. "What'd I 
 tell you." He turned to the waiter. "Gordy an' I 
 friends. Been tryin' help him, haven't I, Gordy?" 
 
 Gordy looked up. 
 
 "Help me? Hell, no!" 
 
MAY DAY IIS 
 
 Jewel rose suddenly, and seizing Gordon's arm assisted 
 him to his feet. 
 
 "Come on, Gordy !" she said, leaning toward him and 
 speaking in a half whisper. "Let's us get out of here. 
 This fella's got a mean drunk on." 
 
 Gordon allowed himself to be urged to his feet and 
 started toward the door. Jewel turned for a second and 
 addressed the provoker of their flight. 
 
 "I know all about youl" she said fiercely. "Nice 
 friend, you are, I'll say. He told me about you." 
 
 Then she seized Gordon's arm, and together they 
 made their way through the curious crowd, paid their 
 check, and went out. 
 
 "You'U have to sit down," said the waiter to Peter 
 after they had gone, 
 
 "What's 'at? Sit down?" 
 
 "Yes— or get out." 
 
 Peter turned to Dean. 
 
 "Come on," he suggested. "Let's beat up this 
 waiter." 
 
 "All right." 
 
 They advanced toward him, their faces grown stem. 
 The waiter retreated. 
 
 Peter suddenly reached over to a plate on the table 
 beside him and picking up a handful of hash tossed it 
 into the air. It descended as a languid parabola in 
 snowflake effect on the heads of those near by. 
 
 "Hey! Ease up!" 
 
 "Puthunout!" 
 
 "Sit down, Peter!" 
 
 "Cut out that stuff!" 
 
 Peter laughed and bowed. 
 
 "Thank you for your kind applause, ladies and gents. 
 If some one will lend me some more hash and a tall hat 
 we will go on with the act." 
 
ii6 TALES OF THE JAZZ AGE 
 
 The bouncer bustled up. 
 
 "You've gotta get out!" he said to Peter. 
 
 "HeU, no!" 
 
 "He's my friend !" put in Dean indignantly. 
 
 A crowd of waiters were gathering. "Put him out !" 
 
 "Better go, Peter." 
 
 There was a short struggle and the two were edged 
 and pushed toward the door. 
 
 "I got a hat and a coat here!" cried Peter. 
 
 "Well, go get 'em and be spry about it!" 
 
 The bouncer released his hold on Peter, who, adopt- 
 ing a ludicrous air of extreme cunning, rushed im- 
 mediately around to the other table, where he burst 
 into derisive laughter and thumbed his nose at the exas- 
 perated waiters. 
 
 "Think I just better wait a I'il' longer," he announced. 
 
 The chase began. Four waiters were sent around one 
 way and four another. Dean caught hold of two of 
 them by the coat, and another struggle took place be- 
 fore the pursuit of Peter could be resumed; he was 
 finally pinioned after overturning a sugar-bowl and sev- 
 eral cups of coffee. A fresh argument ensued at the 
 cashier's desk, where Peter attempted to buy another 
 dish of hash to take with him and throw at policemen. 
 / But the commotion upon his exit proper was dwarfed 
 by another phenomenon which drew admiring glances 
 and a prolonged involuntary "Oh-h-h!" from every 
 person in the restaurant. 
 
 The great plate-glass front had turned to a deep 
 creamy blue, the color of a Maxfield Parrish moonlight — 
 a blue that seemed to press close upon the pane as if to 
 crowd its way into the restaurant. Dawn had come up 
 in Columbus Circle, magical, breathless dawn, silhou- 
 etting the great statue of the immortal Christopher, and 
 mingling in a curious and uncanny manner with the 
 fading yellow electric light inside. 
 
MAY DAY 117 
 
 X 
 
 Mr. In and Mr. Out are not listed by the census-taker. 
 You will search for them in vain through the social 
 register or the births, marriages, and deaths, or the 
 grocer's credit list. Oblivion has swallowed them 
 and the testimony that they ever existed at all is vague 
 and shadowy, and inadmissible in a court of law. Yet 
 I have it upon the best authority that for a brief 
 space Mr. In and Mr. Out lived, breathed, answered 
 to their names and radiated vivid personalities of their 
 own. 
 
 During the brief span of their lives they walked in 
 their native garments down the great highway of a great 
 nation; were laughed at, sworn at, chased, and fled from. 
 Then they passed and were heard of no more. 
 
 They were already taking form dimly, when a taxi- 
 cab with the top open breezed down Broadway in the 
 faintest glirmner of May dawn. In this car sat the souls 
 of Mr. In and Mr. Out discussing with amazement the 
 blue light that had so precipitately colored the sky be- 
 hind the statue of Christopher Columbus, discussing 
 with bewilderment the old, gray faces of the early risers 
 which skimmed palely along the street like blown bits of 
 paper on a gray lake. They were agreed on all things, 
 from the absurdity of the bouncer in Childs' to the ab- 
 surdity of the business of life. They were dizzy with 
 the extreme maudlin happiness that the morning had 
 awakened in their glowing souls. Indeed, so fresh and 
 vigorous was their pleasure in living that they felt it 
 should be expressed by loud cries. 
 
 "Ye-ow-ow!" hooted Peter, making a megaphone 
 with his hands — and Dean joined in with a call that, 
 though equally significant and symbolic, derived its 
 resonance from its very inarticulateness. 
 
 "Yo-ho! Yea! Yoho! Yo-buba!" 
 
ii8 TALES OF THE JAZZ AGE 
 
 Fifty-third Street was a bus with a dark, bobbed-hair 
 beauty atop; Fifty-second was a street cleaner who 
 dodged, escaped, and sent up a yell of, "Look where 
 you're aimin' ! " in a pained and grieved voice. At 
 Fiftieth Street a group of men on a very white sidewalk 
 in front of a very white building turned to stare after 
 them, and shouted: 
 
 " Some party, boys ! " 
 
 At Forty-ninth Street Peter turned to Dean. "Beau- 
 tiful morning," he said gravely, squinting up his owlish 
 eyes. 
 
 "Probably is." 
 
 " Go get some breakfast, hey ? " 
 
 Dean agreed — with additions. 
 
 "Breakfast and liquor." 
 
 "Breakfast and liquor," repeated Peter, and they 
 looked at each other, nodding. "That's logical." 
 
 Then they both burst into loud laughter. 
 
 "Breakfast and liquor! Oh, gosh!" 
 
 "No such thing," announced Peter. 
 
 "Don't serve it? Ne'mind. We force 'em serve it. 
 Bring pressure bear." 
 
 "Briag logic bear." 
 
 The taxi cut suddenly off Broadway, sailed along a 
 cross street, and stopped in front of a heavy tomb-like 
 building in Fifth Avenue. 
 
 "What's idea.?" 
 
 The taxi-driver informed them that this was Del- 
 monico's. 
 
 This was somewhat puzzling. They were forced to 
 devote several minutes to intense concentration, for if 
 such an order had been given there must have been a 
 reason for it. 
 
 "Somep'm 'bouta coat," suggested the taxi-man. 
 
 That was it. Peter's overcoat and hat. He had left 
 
MAY DAY 119 
 
 than at Delmonico's. Having decided this, they dis- 
 embarked from the taxi and strolled toward the entrance 
 arm in arm. 
 
 "Hey!" said the taxi-driver. 
 
 "Huh.?" 
 
 "You better pay me." 
 
 They shook their heads in shocked negation. 
 
 "Later, not now — ^we give orders, you wait." 
 
 The taxi-driver objected; he wanted his money now. 
 With the scornful condescension of men exercising tre- 
 mendous self-control they paid him. 
 
 Inside Peter groped in vain through a dim, deserted 
 check-room in search of his coat and derby. 
 
 "Gone, I guess. Somebody stole it." 
 
 "Some Sheff student." 
 
 "All probability." 
 
 "Never mind," said Dean, nobly. "I'll leave mine 
 here too — then we'll both be dressed the same." 
 
 He removed his overcoat and hat and was hanging 
 them up when his roving glance was caught and held 
 magnetically by two large squares of cardboard tacked 
 to the two coat-room doors. The one on the left-hand 
 door bore the word "In" in big black letters, and the 
 one on the right-hand door flaunted the equally emphatic 
 word "Out." 
 
 "Look !" he exclaimed happily — ■ — • 
 
 Peter's eyes followed his pointing finger. 
 
 "What?" 
 
 "Look at the signs. Let's take 'em." 
 
 "Good idea." 
 
 "Probably pair very rare an' valuable signs. Prob- 
 ably come in handy." 
 
 Peter removed the left-hand sign from the door and 
 endeavored to conceal it about his person. The sign 
 being of considerable proportions, this was a matter of 
 
120 TALES OF THE JAZZ AGE 
 
 some difficulty. An idea flung itself at him, and with an 
 air of dignified mystery he turned his back. After 
 an instant he wheeled dramatically around, and stretch- 
 ing out his arms displayed himself to the admiring Dean. 
 He had inserted the sign in his vest, completely cover- 
 ing his shirt front. In effect, the word "In" had been 
 painted upon his shirt in large black letters. 
 
 "Yoho !" cheered Dean. "Mister In." 
 
 He inserted his own sign in like manner. 
 
 "Mister Out!" he announced triumphantly. "Mr. 
 In meet Mr. Out." 
 
 They advanced and shook hands. Again laughter over- 
 came them and they rocked in a shaken spasm of mirth. 
 
 "Yoho!" 
 
 "We probably get a flock of breakfast." 
 
 "We'll go — go to the Commodore." 
 
 Arm in arm they sallied out the door, and turning 
 east in Forty-fourth Street set out for the Commodore. 
 
 As they came out a short dark soldier, very pale and 
 tired, who had been wandering listlessly along the side- 
 walk, turned to look at them. 
 
 He started over as though to address them, but as 
 they immediately bent on him glances of withering un- 
 recognition, he waited until they had started unsteadily 
 down the street, and then followed at about forty paces, 
 chuckling to himself and saying "Oh, boy!" over and 
 over under his breath, in delighted, anticipatory tones. 
 
 Mr. In and Mr. Out were meanwhile exchanging plea- 
 santries concerning their future plans. 
 
 "We want liquor; we want breakfast. Neither with- 
 out the other. One and indivisible." 
 
 "We want both 'em!" 
 
 "Both 'em!" 
 
 It was quite light now, and passers-by began to bend 
 curious eyes on the pair. Obviously they were engaged 
 in a discussion, which afforded each of them intense 
 
MAY DAY 121 
 
 amusement, for occasionally a fit of laughter would 
 seize upon them so violently that, still with their arms 
 interlocked, they would bend nearly double. 
 
 Reaching the Commodore, they exchanged a few 
 spicy epigrams with the sleepy-eyed doorman, navigated 
 the revolving door with some difl&culty, and then made 
 their way through a thinly populated but startled lobby 
 to the dining-room, where a puzzled waiter showed them 
 an obscure table in a corner. They studied the bill of 
 fare helplessly, telling over the items to each other in 
 puzzled mumbles. 
 
 "Don't see any liquor here," said Peter reproachfully. 
 
 The waiter became audible but unintelligible. 
 
 "Repeat," continued Peter, with patient tolerance, 
 "that there seems to be unexplained and quite distaste- 
 ful lack of liquor upon bUl of fare." 
 
 "Here !" said Dean confidently, "let me handle him." 
 He turned to the waiter — "Bring us — bring us — " he 
 scanned the bill of fare anxiously. "Bring us a quart 
 of champagne and a — a — ^probably ham sandwich." 
 
 The waiter looked doubtful. 
 
 "Bring it!" roared Mr. In and Mr. Out in chorus. 
 
 The waiter coughed and disappeared. There was a 
 short wait during which they were subjected without 
 their knowledge to a careful scrutiny by the head- 
 waiter. Then the champagne arrived, and at the sight 
 of it Mr. In and Mr. Out became jubilant. 
 
 "Imagine their objecting to us having champagne for 
 breakfast — ^jus' imagine." 
 
 They both concentrated upon the vision of such an 
 awesome possibility, but the feat was too much for them. 
 It was impossible for their joint imaginations to conjure 
 up a world where any one might object to any one else 
 having champagne for breakfast. The waiter drew the 
 cork with an enormous pop — and their glasses imme- 
 diately foamed with pale yellow froth. 
 
122 TALES OF THE JAZZ AGE 
 
 "Here's health, Mr. In." 
 
 "Here's same to you, Mr. Out." 
 
 The waiter withdrew; the minutes passed; the cham- 
 pagne became low in the bottle. 
 
 "It's — it's mortifying," said Dean suddenly. 
 
 "Wha's mortifymg.?" 
 
 "The idea their objecting us having champagne 
 breakfast." 
 
 "Mortifying?" Peter considered. "Yes, tha's word 
 — ^mortifying." 
 
 Again they collapsed into laughter, howled, swayed, 
 rocked back and forth in their chairs, repeating the 
 word "mortifying" over and over to each other — each 
 repetition seeming to make it only more brilliantly ab- 
 surd. 
 
 After a few more gorgeous minutes they decided on 
 another quart. Their anxious waiter consulted his im- 
 mediate superior, and this discreet person gave implicit 
 instructions that no more champagne should be served. 
 Their check was brought. 
 
 Five minutes later, arm in arm, they left the Commo- 
 dore and made their way through a curious, staring 
 crowd along Forty-second Street, and up Vanderbilt 
 Avenue to the BUtmore. There, with sudden cunning, 
 they rose to the occasion and traversed the lobby, 
 walking fast and standing unnaturally erect. 
 
 Once in the dining-room they repeated their perform- 
 ance. They were torn between intermittent convulsive 
 laughter and sudden spasmodic discussions of politics, 
 coUege, and the sunny state of their dispositions. Their 
 watches told them that it was now nine o'clock, and a 
 dim idea was born in them that they were on a memora- 
 ble party, something that they would remember always. 
 They lingered over the second bottle. Either of them 
 had only to mention the word "mortifying" to send 
 
MAY DAY 123 
 
 them both into riotous gasps. The dining-room was 
 whirring and shifting now; a curious lightness permeated 
 and rarefied the heavy air. 
 
 They paid their check and walked out into the lobby. 
 
 It was at this moment that the exterior doors revolved 
 for the thousandth time that morning, and admitted 
 into the lobby a very pale young beauty with dark cir- 
 cles under her eyes, attired in a much-rumpled evening 
 dress. She was accompanied by a plain stout man, 
 obviously not an appropriate escort. 
 
 At the top of the stairs this couple encoxmtered Mr. 
 In and Mr. Out. 
 
 "Edith," began Mr. In, stepping toward her hilari- 
 ously and making a sweeping bow, "darling, good morn- 
 ing." 
 
 The stout man glanced questioningly at Edith, as if 
 merely asking her permission to throw this man simi- 
 marily out of the way. 
 
 "'Scuse familiarity," added Peter, as an afterthought. 
 "Edith, good-morning." 
 
 He seized Dean's elbow and impelled him into the 
 foreground. 
 
 "Meet Mr. In, Edith, my bes' frien'. Inseparable. 
 Mr. In and Mr. Out." 
 
 Mr. Out advanced and bowed ; in fact, he advanced so 
 far and bowed so low that he tipped slightly forward 
 and only kept his balance by placing a hand lightly on 
 Edith's shoulder. 
 
 " I'm Mr.. Out, Edith," he mumbled pleasantly, " S'mis- 
 terin Misterout." 
 
 " 'Smisterinanout," said Peter proudly. 
 
 But Edith stared straight by them, her eyes fixed on 
 some infinite speck in the gallery above her. She 
 nodded slightly to the stout man, who advanced bull- 
 like and with a sturdy brisk gesture pushed Mr. In and 
 
124 TALES OF THE JAZZ AGE 
 
 Mr. Out to either side. Through this alley he and Edith 
 walked. 
 
 But ten paces farther on Edith stopped again — stopped 
 and pointed to a short, dark soldier who was eying the 
 crowd in general, and the tableau of Mr. In and Mr. Out 
 in particular, with a sort of puzzled, spell-bound awe. 
 
 "There," cried Edith. "See there!" 
 
 Her voice rose, became somewhat shriU. Her point- 
 ing finger shook slightly. 
 
 "There's the soldier who broke my brother's leg." 
 
 There were a dozen exclamations; a man in a cutaway 
 coat left his place near the desk and advanced alertly; 
 the stout person made a sort of lightning-like spring 
 toward the short, dark soldier, and then the lobby closed 
 around the little group and blotted them from the 
 sight of Mr. In and Mr. Out. 
 
 But to Mr. In and Mr. Out this event was merely a 
 particolored iridescent segment of a whirring, spinning 
 world. 
 
 They heard loud voices; they saw the stout man 
 spring; the picture suddenly blurred. 
 
 Then they were in an elevator bound sk)rward. 
 
 "What floor, please?" said the elevator man. 
 
 "Any floor," said Mr. In. 
 
 "Top floor," said Mr. Out. 
 
 "This is the top floor," said the elevator man. 
 
 "Have another floor put on," said Mr. Out. 
 
 "Higher," said Mr. In. 
 
 "Heaven," said Mr. Out. 
 
 XI 
 
 In a bedroom of a small hotel just off Sixth Avenue 
 Gordon Sterrett awoke with a pain in the back of his 
 head and a sick throbbing in aU his veins. He looked at 
 
MAY DAY 125 
 
 the dusky gray shadows in the corners of the room and at 
 a raw place on a large leather chair in the comer where 
 it had long been in use. He saw clothes, dishevelled, 
 rumpled clothes on the floor and he smelt stale cigarette 
 smoke and stale liquor. The windows were tight shut. 
 Outside the bright sunlight had thrown a dust-filled beam 
 across the sill — a beam broken by the head of the wide 
 wooden bed in which he had slept. He lay very quiet — 
 comatose, drugged, his eyes wide, his mind clicking 
 wildly like an unoiled machine. 
 
 It must have been thirty seconds after he perceived 
 the sunbeam with the dust on it and the rip on the large 
 leather chair that he had the sense of life close beside 
 him, and it was another thirty seconds after that be- 
 fore that he realized that he was irrevocably married to 
 Jewel Hudson. 
 
 He went out half an hour later and bought a revolver 
 at a sporting goods store. Then he took a taxi to the 
 Toom where he had been living on East Twenty-seventh 
 Street, and, leaning across the table that held his drawing 
 'materials, fired a cartridge into his head just behind the 
 temple. 
 
PORCELAIN AND PINK 
 
 A room in the dovm-stairs of a summer cottage. High 
 around the wall runs an art frieze of a fisherman with 
 a pile of nets at his feet and a ship on a crimson ocean, 
 a fisherman with a pile of nets at his feet and a ship 
 on a crimson ocean, a fisherman with a pile of nets 
 at his feet and so on. In one place on the frieze there 
 is an overlapping — here we have half a fisherman 
 with half a pile of nets at his foot, crowded damply 
 against half a ship on half a crimson ocean. The 
 frieze is not in the plot, but frankly it fascinates me. 
 I could continue indefinitely, but I am distracted by 
 one of the two objects in the room — a blue porcelain 
 bath-tub. It has character, this bath-tub. It is not 
 one of the new racing bodies, but is small with a high 
 tonneau and looks as if it were going to jump; dis- 
 couraged, however, by the shortness of its legs, it has 
 submitted to its environment and to its coat of sky-blue 
 paint. Bui it grumpily refuses to allow any patron 
 completely to stretch his legs — which brings us neatly 
 to the second object in the room : 
 
 It is a girl — clearly an appendage to the bath-tub, only her 
 head and throat — beautiful girls have throats instead 
 of necks — and a suggestion of shoulder appearing 
 above the side. For the first ten minutes of the play 
 the audience is engrossed in wondering if she really 
 is playing the game fairly and hasn't any clothes on 
 or whether it is being cheated and site is dressed. 
 
 The girl's name is Julie Marvis. From the proud way 
 she sits up in the bath-tub we deduce that she is not 
 very tall and that she carries herself well. When 
 126 
 
PORCELAIN AND PINK 127 
 
 she smiles, her upper lip rolls a little and reminds you 
 of an Easter Bunny. She is within whispering dis- 
 tance of twenty years old. 
 
 One thing more — above and to the right of the bath-tub is a 
 window. It is narrow and has a wide sill; it lets in 
 much sunshine, but effectually prevents any one who 
 looks in from seeing the bath-tub. You begin to sus- 
 pect the plot ? 
 
 We open, conventionally enough, with a song, but, as the 
 startled gasp of the audience quite drowns out the 
 first half, we will give only the last of it : 
 Julie: {In an airy sophrano-enthusiastico) 
 
 When Csesar did the Chicago 
 He was a graceful child, 
 
 Those sacred chickens 
 
 Just raised the dickens 
 The Vestal Virgins went wild- 
 Whenever the Nervii got nervy 
 He gave them an awful razz 
 
 They shook in their shoes 
 
 With the Consular blues 
 The Imperial Roman Jazz 
 
 (During the wild applause that follows Julie mod- 
 estly moves her arms and makes waves on the 
 surface of the water — at least we suppose she 
 does. Then the door on the left opens and Lois 
 Marvis enters, dressed but carrying garments 
 and towels. Lois is a year older than Julie 
 and is nearly her double in face and voice, but in 
 her clothes and expression are the marks of the 
 conservative. Yes, you've guessed it. Mistaken 
 identity is the old, rusty pivot upon which the 
 plot turns.) 
 
128 TALES OF THE JAZZ AGE 
 
 Lois: (Starting) Oh, 'scuse me. I didn't know you 
 were here. 
 
 JuxEE : Oh, hello. I'm giving a little concert 
 
 Lois: (Interrupting) Why didn't you lock the door? 
 
 Julie: Didn't I? 
 
 Lois: Of course you didn't Do you think I just 
 walked through it ? 
 
 Julie: I thought you picked the lock, dearest. 
 
 Lois: You're so careless. 
 
 Julie: No. I'm happy as a garbage-man's dog and 
 I'm giving a Uttle concert. 
 
 Lois: (Severely) Grow up! 
 
 Julie : (Waving a pink arm around the room) The walls 
 reflect the sound, you see. That's why there's something 
 very beautiful about singing in a bath-tub. It gives an 
 effect of surpassing loveliness. Can I render you a 
 selection ? 
 
 Lois: I wish you'd hurry out of the tub. 
 
 Julie: (Shaking her head thoughtfully) Can't be hiu:- 
 ried. This is my kingdom at present. Godliness. 
 
 Lois : Why the mellow name ? 
 
 Julie: Because you're next to Cleanliness. Don't 
 throw anything please! 
 
 Lois: How long will you be ? 
 
 Julie: (After some consideration) Not less than fif- 
 teen nor more than twenty-five minutes. 
 
 Lois: As a favor to me will you make it ten ? 
 
 Julie: (Reminiscing) Oh, Godliness, do you remember 
 a day in the chill of last January when one Julie, famous 
 for her Easter-rabbit smile, was going out and there 
 was scarcely any hot water and young Julie had just 
 filled the tub for her own little self when the wicked 
 sister came and did bathe herself therein, forcing the 
 young Julie to perform her ablutions with cold cream — 
 which is expensive and a darn lot of trouble ? 
 
PORCELAIN AND PINK 129 
 
 Lois: (Impatiently) Then you won't hurry? 
 
 Julie: Why should I? 
 
 Lois: I've got a date. 
 
 Julie : Here at the house ? 
 
 Lois: None of your business. 
 
 (Julie shrugs the visible tips of her shoulders and 
 stirs the water into ripples.) 
 
 Julie: So be it. 
 
 Lois: Oh, for Heaven's sake, yes ! I have a date here 
 at the house — in a way. 
 
 Julie : In a way ? 
 
 Lois: He isn't coming in. He's calling for me and 
 we're walking. 
 
 Julie: {Raising her eyebrows) Oh, the plot clears. 
 It's that literary Mr. Calkins. I thought you prom- 
 ised mother you wouldn't invite him in. 
 
 Lois: {Desperately) She's so idiotic. She detests him 
 because he's just got a divorce. Of course she's had 
 more experience than I have, but 
 
 Julie: {Wisely) Don't let her kid you! Experience 
 is the biggest gold brick in the world. All older people 
 have it for sale. 
 
 Lois: I like him. We talk literature. 
 
 Julie: Oh, so that's why I've noticed all these weighty 
 books around the house lately. 
 
 Lois: He lends them to me. 
 
 Julie: Well, you've got to play his game. When in 
 Rome do as the Romans would like to do. But I'm 
 through with books. I'm aU educated. 
 
 Lois: You're very inconsistent — last smmner you 
 read every day. 
 
 Julie : If I were consistent I'd still be living on warm 
 milk out of a bottle. 
 
 Lois: Yes, and probably my bottle. But I like Mr. 
 Calkins. 
 
I30 TALES OF THE JAZZ AGE 
 
 Julie: I never met him. 
 
 Lois: Well, will you hurry up ? 
 
 Julie: Yes. {Ajttr a pause) I wait till the water 
 gets tepid and then I let in more hot. 
 
 Lois : {Sarcastically) How interesting ! 
 
 Julie: 'Member when we used to play "soapo" ? 
 
 Lois: Yes — and ten years old. I'm really quite sur- 
 prised that you don't play it still. 
 
 Julie : I do. I'm going to in a minute. 
 
 Lois: Silly game. 
 
 Julie: {Warmly) No, it isn't. It's good for the 
 nerves. I'll bet you've forgotten how to play it. 
 
 Lois: {Defiantly) No, I haven't. You — you get the 
 tub all full of soapsuds and then you get up on the edge 
 and slide down. 
 
 Julie: {Shaking her head scornfully) Huh! That's 
 only part of it. You've got to slide down without touch- 
 ing your hands or feet 
 
 Lois: {Impatiently) Oh, Lord! What do I care? I 
 wish we'd either stop coming here in the summer or 
 else get a house with two bath-tubs. 
 
 Julie: You can buy yourself a little tin one, or use 
 the hose 
 
 Lois: Oh, shut up! 
 
 Julie: {Irrelevantly) Leave the towel. 
 
 Lois: What? 
 
 Julie : Leave the towel when you go. 
 
 Lois: This towel? 
 
 Julie: {Sweetly) Yes, I forgot my towel. 
 
 Lois: {Looking around for the first time) Why, you 
 idiot ! You haven't even a kimono. 
 
 Julie: {Also looking around) Why, so I haven't. 
 
 Lois: {Suspicion growing on her) How did you get 
 here? 
 
 Julie : {Laughing) I guess I — I guess I whisked here. 
 
PORCELAIN AND PINK 131 
 
 You know — a white form whisking down the stairs 
 and 
 
 Lois : {Scandalized) Why, you little wretch. Haven't 
 you any pride or self-respect ? 
 
 Julie: Lots of both. I think that proves it. Hooked 
 very well. I really am rather cute in my natural state. 
 
 Lois: Well, you 
 
 Julie : {Thinking aloud) I wish people didn't wear any 
 clothes. I guess I ought to have been a pagan or a na- 
 tive or something. 
 
 Lois: You're a 
 
 Julie : I dreamt last night that one Sunday in church 
 a small boy brought in a magnet that attracted cloth. 
 He attracted the clothes right off of everybody; put 
 them in an awful state; people were crying and shriek- 
 ing and carrying on as if they'd just discovered their 
 skins for the first time. Only / didn't care. So I just 
 laughed. I had to pass the collection plate because no- 
 body else would. 
 
 Lois: (Who has turned a deaf ear to this speech) Do 
 you mean to tell me that if I hadn't come you'd have 
 run back to your room — un — unclothed ? 
 
 Julie: Au naiurel is so much nicer. 
 
 Lois : Suppose there had been some one in the living- 
 room. 
 
 Julie: There never has been yet. 
 
 Lois: Yet! Good grief! How long 
 
 Julie: Besides, I usually have a towel. 
 
 Lois: {Completely overcome) Golly! You ought to 
 be spanked. I hope you get caught. I hope there's a 
 dozen ministers in the living-room when you come out — 
 and their wives and their daughters. 
 
 Julie : There wouldn't be room for them in the living- 
 room, answered Clean Kate of the Latmdry District. 
 
132 TALES OF THE JAZZ AGE 
 
 Lois: All right. You've made your own — bath-tub; * 
 you can lie in it. 
 
 (Lois starts determinedly for the door.) 
 Julie: {In alarm) Hey! Hey! I don't care about 
 the k'mono, but I want the towel. I can't dry myself 
 on a piece of soap and a wet wash-rag. 
 
 Lois: {Obstinately) I won't humor such a creature. 
 You'll have to dry yourself the best way you can. You 
 can roll on the floor like the animals do that don't wear 
 any clothes. 
 Julie: {Complacent again) All right. Get out! 
 Lois: {Haughtily) Huh! 
 
 (Julie turns on the cold water and with her finger 
 directs a parabolic stream at Lois. Lois retires 
 quickly, slamming the door after her. Julie 
 laughs and turns off the water) 
 Julie: {Singing) 
 
 When the Arrow-collar man 
 
 Meets the D'Jer-kiss girl 
 On the smokeless Sante Fe 
 
 Her Pebeco smile 
 
 Her Lucile style 
 De dum da-de-dum one day 
 
 {She changes to a whistle and leans forward to 
 turn on the taps, hut is startled by three loud 
 hanging noises in the pipes. Silence for a mo- 
 ment — then she puts her mouth down near the 
 spigot as if it were a telephone) 
 Julie: Hello! {No answer) Are you a plumber? 
 {No answer) Are you the water department? {One 
 loud, hollow bang) What do you want ? {No answer) 
 I believe you're a ghost. Are you ? {No answer) 
 Well, then, stop banging. {She reaches out and turns 
 on the warm tap. No water flows. Again she puts her 
 
PORCELAIN AND PINK 133 
 
 mouth down close to the spigot) If you're the plumber 
 that's a mean trick. Turn it on for a fellow. (Two 
 loud, hollow bangs) Don't argue! I want water — 
 water ! Water I 
 
 (A young man's head appears in the window — a 
 head decorated with a slim mustache and sympor- 
 thetic eyes. These last stare, and though they 
 can see nothing hut many fishermen with nets 
 and much crimson ocean, they decide him to 
 speak) 
 
 The Young Man: Some one fainted ? 
 
 Julie: {Starting up, all ears immediately) Jumping 
 cats! 
 
 The Young Man: {Helpfully) Water's no good for 
 fits. 
 
 Julie : Fits ! Who said anything about fits ! 
 
 The Young Man: You said something about a cat 
 jumping. 
 
 Julie : {Decidedly) I did not ! 
 
 The Young Man: Well, we can talk it over later. 
 Are you ready to go out ^ Or do you still feel that if 
 you go with me just now everybody will gossip ? 
 
 Julie : {Smiling) Gossip ! Would they ? It'd be 
 more than gossip — it'd be a regular scandal. 
 
 The Young Man: Here, you're going it a little strong. 
 Your family might be somewhat disgruntled — but to 
 the pure all things are suggestive. No one else would 
 even give it a thought, except a few old women. Come 
 on. 
 
 Julie : You don't know what you ask. 
 
 The Young Man: Do you imagine we'd have a 
 crowd following us ? 
 
 Julie: A crowd? There'd be a special, all-steel, 
 buffet train leaving New York hourly. 
 
 The Young Man: Say, are you house-cleaning? 
 
134 TALES OF THE JAZZ AGE 
 
 Julie: Why? 
 
 The Young Man: I see all the pictures are off the 
 walls. 
 
 Julie: Why, we never have pictures in this room. 
 
 The Young Man: Odd. I never heard of a room 
 without pictures or tapestry or panelling or something. 
 
 Julie: There's not even any furniture in here. 
 
 The Young Man: What a strange house ! 
 
 Julie: It depends on the angle you see it from. 
 
 The Young Man: {Sentimentally) It's so nice talking 
 to you like this — when you're merely a voice. I'm 
 rather glad I can't see you. 
 
 Julie: (Gratefully) So am I. 
 
 The Young Man: What color are you wearing ? 
 
 Julie : (After a critical survey of her shoulders) Why, I 
 guess it's a sort of pinkish white. 
 
 The Young Man: Is it becoming to you ? 
 
 Julie: Very. It's — ^it's old. I've had it for a long 
 while. 
 
 The Young Man: I thought you hated old 
 clothes. 
 
 Julie: I do — ^but this was a birthday present and I 
 sort of have to wear it. 
 
 The Young Man: Pinkish white. Well, I'll bet it's 
 divine. Is it in style ? 
 
 Julie: Quite. It's very simple, standard model. 
 
 The Young Man: What a voice you have ! How it 
 echoes! Sometimes I shut my eyes and seem to see 
 you in a far desert island calling for me. And I plunge 
 toward you through the surf, hearing you call as you 
 
 stand there, water stretching on both sides of you 
 
 (The soap slips from the side of the tub and splashes 
 in. The young man blinks) 
 
 The Young Man: What was that ? Did I dream it ? 
 
 Julie: Yes. You're — ^you're very poetic, aren't you? 
 
PORCELAIN AND PINK 135 
 
 The Young Man: {Dreamily) No. I do prose. I 
 do verse only when I am stirred. 
 
 Julie: {Murmuring) Stirred by a spoon 
 
 The Young Man: I have always loved poetry. I 
 can remember to this day the first poem I ever learned 
 by heart. It was "Evangeline." 
 
 Julie: That's a fib. 
 
 The Young Man: Did I say "Evangeline"? I 
 meant "The Skeleton in Armor." 
 
 Julie : I'm a low-brow. But I can remember my first 
 poem. It had one verse: 
 
 Parker and Davis 
 Sittin' on a fence 
 Tryne to make a dollar 
 Outa fif-teen cents. 
 
 The Young Man: {Eagerly) Are you growing fond of 
 literature ? 
 
 Julee: If it's not too ancient or complicated or de- 
 pressing. Same way with people. I usually like 'em 
 if they're not too ancient or complicated or depressing. 
 
 The Young Man: Of course I've read enormously. 
 You told me last night that you were very fond of Walter 
 Scott. 
 
 Julie: {Considering) Scott? Let's see. Yes, I've 
 read "Ivanhoe" and "The Last of the Mohicans." 
 
 The Young Man: That's by Cooper. 
 
 Julie: {Angrily) "Ivanhoe" is? You're crazy! I 
 guess I know. I read it. 
 
 The Young Man: "The Last of the Mohicans" is 
 by Cooper. 
 
 Julie: What do I care! I like O. Henry. I don't 
 see how he ever wrote those stories. Most of them he 
 wrote in prison. "The Ballad of Reading Gaol " he 
 made up in prison. 
 
136 TALES OF THE JAZZ AGE 
 
 The Young Man: {Biting his lip) Literature — litera- 
 ture ! How much it has meant to me ! 
 
 Julie: Well, as Gaby Deslys said to Mr. Bergson, 
 with my looks and your brains there's nothing we couldn't 
 do. 
 
 The Young Man: {Laughing) You certainly are hard 
 to keep up with. One day you're awfully pleasant and 
 the next you're in a mood. If I didn't understand your 
 temperament so well 
 
 Julie: {Impatiently) Oh, you're one of these amateur 
 character-readers, are you ? Size people up in five min- 
 utes and then look wise whenever they're mentioned. I 
 hate that sort of thing. 
 
 The Young Man: I don't boast of sizing you up. 
 You're most mysterious, I'll admit. 
 
 Julie : There's only two mysterious people in history. 
 
 The Young Man: Who are they ? 
 
 Julie: The Man with the Iron Mask and the fella 
 who says "ug uh-glug uh-glug uh-glug" when the line 
 is busy. 
 
 The Young Man: You are mysterious. I love you. 
 You're beautiful, intelligent, and virtuous, and that's 
 the rarest known combination. 
 
 Julie: You're a historian. Tell me if there are any 
 bath-tubs in history. I think they've been frightfully 
 neglected. 
 
 The Young Man: Bath-tubs! Let's see. Well, Aga- 
 memnon was stabbed in his bath-tub. And Charlotte 
 Corday stabbed Marat in his bath-tub. 
 
 Julie : {Sighing) Way back there ! Nothing new be- 
 sides the sun, is there .'' Why only yesterday I picked 
 up a musical-comedy score that must have been at least 
 twenty years old; and there on the cover it said "The 
 Shimmies of Normandy," but shimmie was spelt the 
 old way, with a "C." 
 
PORCELAIN AND PINK 137 
 
 The Young Man: I loathe these modem dances. 
 Oh, Lois, I wish I could see you. Come to the window. 
 {There is a loud bang in the water-pipe and sud- 
 denly the flow starts from the open taps. Julie 
 turns them ojff quickly) 
 The Young Man: {Puzzled) What on earth was 
 that? 
 Julie : {Ingeniously) I heard something, too. 
 The Young Man: Sounded like running water. 
 Julie: Didn't it? Strange like it. As a matter of 
 fact I was filling the gold-fish bowl. 
 
 The Young Man: {Still puzzled) What was that bang- 
 ing noise ? 
 Julie: One of the fish snapping his golden jaws. 
 The Young Man: {With sudden resolution) Lois, I 
 love you. I am not a mundane man but I am a forg- 
 er 
 
 Julie: {Interested at once) Oh, how fascinating. 
 The Young Man: — a forger ahead. Lois, I want 
 you. 
 
 Julie: {Skeptically) Huh! What you really want is 
 for the world to come to attention and stand there till 
 you give "Rest!" 
 
 The Young Man: Lois I — ^Lois I 
 
 {He stops as Lois opens the door, comes in, and 
 hangs it behind her. She looks peevishly at 
 Julie and then suddenly catches sight of the 
 young man in the window) 
 Lois : {In horror) Mr. Calkins ! 
 
 The Yoxtng Man: {Surprised) Why I thought you 
 said you were wearing pinkish white ! 
 
 {After one despairing stare Lois shrieks, throws up 
 her hands in surrender, and sinks to the floor.) 
 The Young Man: {In great alarm) Good Lord ! 
 She's fainted ! I'll be right in. 
 
138 TALES OF THE JAZZ AGE 
 
 (Jxjlie's eyes light on the towel which has slipped 
 from Lois's inert hand.) 
 Julie: In that case I'll be right out. 
 
 {She puts her hands on tJie side of the tub to lift her- 
 self out and a murmur, half gasp, half sigh, 
 ripples from the atidience. 
 
 A Belasco midnight comes quickly down and blots 
 out the stage) 
 
 Curtain. 
 
FANTASIES 
 
THE DIAMOND AS BIG AS THE RITZ 
 
 John T. Unger came from a family that had been well 
 known in Hades — a small town on the Mississippi River 
 — for several generations. John's father had held the 
 amateur golf championship through many a heated con- 
 test; Mrs. Unger was known "from hot-box to hot-bed," 
 as the local phrase went, for her political addresses; and 
 young John T. Unger, who had just turned sixteen, had 
 danced all the latest dances from New York before he 
 put on long trousers. And now, for a certain time, he 
 was to be away from home. That respect for a New 
 England education which is the bane of all provincial 
 places, which drains them yearly of their most promis- 
 ing young men, had seized upon his parents. Nothing 
 would suit them but that he should go to St. Midas' 
 School near Boston — Hades was too small to hold their 
 darling and gifted son. 
 
 Now in Hades — as you know if you ever have been 
 there — the names of the more fashionable preparatory 
 schools and colleges mean very little. The inhabitants 
 have been so long out of the world that, though they 
 make a show of keeping up to date in dress and manners 
 and literature, they depend to a great extent on hear- 
 say, and a function that in Hades would be considered 
 elaborate would doubtless be hailed by a Chicago beef- 
 princess as "perhaps a little tacky." 
 
 John T. Unger was on the eve of departure. Mrs. 
 Unger, with maternal fatuity, packed his trunks full of 
 linen suits and electric fans, and Mr. Unger presented 
 his son with an asbestos pocket-book stuflfed with money. 
 
 141 
 
142 TALES OF THE JAZZ AGE 
 
 "Remember, you are always welcome here," he said. 
 "You can be sure, boy, that we'll keep the home fires 
 burning." 
 
 "I know," answered John huskily. 
 
 "Don't forget who you are and where you come from," 
 continued his father proudly, "and you can do nothing 
 to harm you. You are an Unger — from Hades." 
 
 So the old man and the young shook hands and John 
 walked away with tears streaming from his eyes. Ten 
 minutes later he had passed outside the city limits, and 
 he stopped to glance back for the last time. Over the 
 gates the old-fashioned Victorian motto seemed strangely 
 attractive to him. His father had tried time and time 
 again to have it changed to something with a little more 
 push and verve about it, such as "Hades — Your Op- 
 portunity," or else a plain "Welcome" sign set over a 
 hearty handshake pricked out in electric lights. The 
 old motto was a little depressing, Mr. Unger had thought 
 — but now. . . . 
 
 So John took his look and then set his face resolutely 
 toward his destination. And, as he turned away, the 
 lights of Hades against the sky seemed full of a warm 
 and passionate beauty. 
 
 St. Midas' School is half an hour from Boston in a 
 Rolls-Pierce motor-car. The actual distance will never 
 be known, for no one, except John T. Unger, had ever 
 arrived there save in a Rolls-Pierce and probably no 
 one ever wiU again. St. Midas' is the most expensive 
 and the most exclusive boys' preparatory school in the 
 world. 
 
 John's first two years there passed pleasantly. The 
 fathers of all the boys were money-kings and John spent 
 his summers visiting at fashionable resorts. While he 
 was very fond of all the boys he visited, their fathers 
 
THE DIAMOND AS BIG AS THE RITZ 143 
 
 struck him as being much of a piece, and in his boyish 
 way he often wondered at their exceeding sameness. 
 Wh«n he told them where his home was they would 
 ask jovially, "Pretty hot down there i" and John would 
 muster a faint smile and answer, "It certainly is." His 
 response would have been heartier had they not all made 
 this joke — at best varying it with, "Is it hot enough 
 for you down there ? " which he hated just as much. 
 
 In the middle of his second year at school, a quiet, 
 handsome boy named Percy Washington had been put 
 in John's form. The newcomer was pleasant in his man- 
 ner and exceedingly well dressed even for St. Midas', 
 but for some reason he kept aloof from the other boys. 
 The only person with whom he was intimate was John 
 T. linger, but even to John he was entirely uncommuni- 
 cative concerning his home or his family. That he was 
 wealthy went without saying, but beyond a few such 
 deductions John knew little of his friend, so it promised 
 rich confectionery for his curiosity when Percy invited 
 him to spend the summer at his home "in the West." 
 He accepted, without hesitation. 
 
 It was only when they were in the train that Percy 
 became, for the first time, rather communicative. One 
 day while they were eating lunch in the dining-car and 
 discussing the imperfect characters of several of the 
 boys at school, Percy suddenly changed his tone and 
 made an abrupt remark. 
 
 "My father," he said, "is by far the richest man in 
 the world." 
 
 "Oh," said John, politely. He could think of no an- 
 swer to make to this confidence. He considered "That's 
 very nice," but it sounded hollow and was on the point 
 of saying, "Really?" but refrained since it would seem 
 to question Percy's statement. And such an astound- 
 ing statement could scarcely be questioned. 
 
144 TALES OF THE JAZZ AGE 
 
 "By far the richest," repeated Percy. 
 
 "I was reading in the World Almanac," began John, 
 "that there was one man in America with an income of 
 over five million a year and four men with incomes of 
 over three million a year, and " 
 
 "Oh, they're nothing." Percy's mouth was a half- 
 moon of scorn. "Catch-penny capitalists, financial 
 small-fry, petty merchants and money-lenders. My 
 father could buy them out and not know he'd done it." 
 
 "But how does he " 
 
 "Why haven't they put down Ms income tax? Be- 
 cause he doesn't pay any. At least he pays a little one 
 — ^but he doesn't pay any on his real income." 
 
 "He must be very rich," said John simply. "I'm 
 glad. I like very rich people. 
 
 "The richer a fella is, the better I like him." There 
 was a look of passionate frankness upon his dark face. 
 "I visited the Schnlitzer-Murphys last Easter. Vivian 
 Schnlitzer-Murphy had rubies as big as hen's eggs, 
 and sapphires that were like globes with lights inside 
 them " 
 
 "I love Jewels," agreed Percy enthusiastically. "Of 
 course I wouldn't want any one at school to know about 
 it, but I've got quite a collection myself. I used to 
 coUect them instead of stamps." 
 
 "And diamonds," continued John eagerly. '"'The 
 Schnlitzer-Murphys had diamonds as big as walnuts " 
 
 "That's nothing." Percy had leaned forward and 
 dropped his voice to a low whisper. "That's nothing 
 at all. My father has a diamond bigger than the Ritz- 
 Cariton Hotel." 
 
 The Montana sunset lay between two mountains like 
 a gigantic bruise from which dark arteries spread them- 
 
THE DIAMOND AS. BIG AS THE RIT^ 145 
 
 selves over a poisoned sky, ' An immense distance under 
 the sky crouched the village of F^sh, minute, dismal, and 
 forgotten. There were twelve men, so it was said, in 
 the village of Fish, twelve sombre and inexplicable 
 souls who sucked a lean milk from the almost literally 
 bare rock upon which a mysterious populatory force 
 had begotten them. They had become a race apart, 
 these twelve men of Fish, like some species developed 
 by an early whim of nature, which on second thought 
 had abandoned them to struggle and extermination. 
 
 Out of the blue-black bruise in the distance crept a 
 long line of moving lights upon the desolation of the 
 land, and the twelve men of Fish gathered like ghosts 
 at the shanty depot to watch the passing of the seven 
 o'clock train, the Transcontinental Express from Chi- 
 cago. Six times or so a year the Transcontinental Ex- 
 press, through some inconceivable jurisdiction, stopped 
 at the viUage of Fish, and when this occurred a figure 
 or so woidd disembark, mount into a buggy that always 
 appeared from out of the dusk, and drive off toward 
 the bruised sunset. The observation of this pointless 
 and preposterous phenomenon had become a sort of 
 cult among the men of Fish. To observe, that was all; 
 there remained in them none of the vital quality of il- 
 lusion which would make them wonder or speculate, 
 else a religion might have grown up around these mys- 
 terious visitations. But the men of Fish were beyond 
 ail religion — the barest and most savage tenets of even 
 Christianity could gain no foothold on that barren rock 
 —so there was no altar, no priest, no sacrifice; only 
 each night at seven the silent concourse by the shanty 
 depot, a congregation who lifted up a prayer of dim, 
 anaemic wonder. 
 
 On this June night, the Great Brakeman, whom, had 
 they deified any one, they might well have chosen as 
 
146 TALES OF THE JAZZ AGE 
 
 their celestial protagonist, had ordained that the seven 
 o'clock train should leave its human (or inhuman) 
 deposit at Fish. At two minutes after seven Percy 
 Washington and John T. Unger disembarked, hurried 
 past the spellbound, the agape, the fearsome eyes of 
 the twelve men of Fish, mounted into a buggy which 
 had obviously appeared from nowhere, and drove away. 
 
 After half an hour, when the twilight had coagulated 
 into dark, the silent negro who was driving the buggy 
 hailed an opaque body somewhere ahead of them in the 
 gloom. In response to his cry, it turned upon them a 
 luminous disk which regarded them like a malignant eye 
 out of the unfathomable night. As they came closer, 
 John saw that it was the tail-light of an immense auto- 
 mobile, larger and more magnificent than any he had 
 ever seen. Its body was of gleaming metal richer than 
 nickel and lighter than silver, and the hubs of the wheels 
 were studded with iridescent geometric figures of green 
 and yeUow — ^John did not dare to guess whether they 
 were glass or jewel. 
 
 Two negroes, dressed in glittering livery such as one 
 sees in pictures of royal processions in London, were 
 standing at attention beside the car and as the two young 
 men dismounted from the buggy they were greeted in 
 some language which the guest could not understand, 
 but which seemed to be an extreme form of the Southern 
 negro's dialect. 
 
 "Get in," said Percy to his friend, as their trunks 
 were tossed to the ebony roof of the limousine. "Sorry 
 we had to bring you this far in that buggy, but of course 
 it wouldn't do for the people on the train or those God- 
 forsaken fellas in Fish to see this automobile." 
 
 "Gosh! What a car!" This ejaculation was pro- 
 voked by its interior. John saw that the upholstery 
 consisted of a thousand minute and exquisite tapestries 
 
THE DIAMOND AS BIG AS THE RITZ 147 
 
 of silk, woven with jewels and embroideries, and set 
 upon a background of cloth of gold. The two armchair 
 seats in which the boys luxuriated were covered with 
 stuff that resembled duvetyn, but seemed woven in num- 
 berless colors of the ends of ostrich feathers. 
 
 "What a car!" cried John again, in amazement. 
 
 "This thing?" Percy laughed. "Why, it's just an 
 old junk we use for a station wagon." 
 
 By this time they were gliding along through the dark- 
 ness toward the break between the two mountains. 
 
 "We'll be there in an hour and a half," said Percy, 
 looking at the clock. "I may as well tell you it's not 
 going to be like anything you ever saw before." 
 
 If the car was any indication of what John would 
 see, he was prepared to be astonished indeed. The sim- 
 ple piety prevalent in Hades has the earnest worship 
 of and respect for riches as the first article of its creed 
 — ^had John felt otherwise than radiantly humble before 
 them, his parents would have turned away in horror 
 at the blashemy. 
 
 They had now reached and were entering the break 
 between the two mountains and almost immediately 
 the way became much rougher. 
 
 "If the moon shone down here, you'd see that we're 
 in a big gulch," said Percy, trying to peer out of the 
 window. He spoke a few words into the mouthpiece 
 and immediately the footman turned on a search-light 
 and swept the hillsides with an immense beam. 
 
 "Rocky, you see. An ordinary car would be knocked 
 to pieces in half an hour. In fact, it'd take a tank to 
 navigate it unless you knew the way. You notice we're 
 going uphill now." 
 
 They were obviously ascending, and within a few 
 minutes the car was crossing a high rise, where they 
 caught a glimpse of a pale moon newly risen in the dis- 
 
148 TALES OF THE JAZZ AGE 
 
 tance. The car stopped suddenly and several figures 
 took shape out of the dark beside it — these were negroes 
 also. Again the two young men were saluted in the 
 same dimly recognizable dialect; then the negroes set 
 to work and four immense cables dangling from over- 
 head were attached with hooks to the hubs of the great 
 jeweled wheels. At a resounding "Hey-yah!" John 
 felt the car being lifted slowly from the ground — up and 
 up — clear of the tallest rocks on both sides — then higher, 
 until he could see a wavy, moonlit valley stretched out 
 before him in sharp contrast to the quagmire of rocks 
 that they had Just left. Only on one side was there 
 still rock — and then suddenly there was no rock beside 
 them or anywhere around. 
 
 It was apparent that they had surmounted some im- 
 mense knife-blade of stone, projecting perpendicularly 
 into the air. In a moment they were going down again," 
 and finally with a soft bump they were landed upon the 
 smooth earth. 
 
 "The worst is over," said Percy, squinting out the 
 window. "It's only five miles from here, and our own 
 road — tapestry brick — all the way. This belongs to 
 us. This is where the United States ends, father says." 
 
 "Are we in Canada ?" 
 
 "We are not. We're in the middle of the Montana 
 Rockies. But you are now on the only five square miles 
 of land in the country that's never been surveyed." 
 
 "Why hasn't it ? Did they forget it ? " 
 
 "No," said Percy, grinning, "they tried to do it three 
 times. The first time my grandfather corrupted a whole 
 department of the State survey; the second time he had 
 the official maps of the United States tinkered with — 
 that held them for fifteen years. The last time was 
 harder. My father fixed it so that their compasses were 
 in the strongest magnetic field ever artificially set up. 
 
THE DIAMOND AS BIG AS THE RITZ 149 
 
 He had a whole set of surveying instruments made with 
 a slight defection that would allow for this territory not 
 to appear, and he substituted them for the ones that 
 were to be used. Then he had a river deflected and he 
 had what looked like a village built up on its banks — so 
 that they'd see it, and think it was a town ten miles 
 farther up the valley. There's only one thing my father's 
 afraid of," he concluded, "only one thing in the world 
 that could be used to find us out." 
 
 "What's that?" 
 
 Percy sank his voice to a whisper. 
 ~ "Aeroplanes," he breathed. "We've got half a doz- 
 en anti-aircraft guns and we've arranged it so far — ^but 
 there've been a few deaths and a great many prisoners. 
 Not that we mind that, you know, father and I, but it 
 upsets mother and the girls, and there's always the 
 chance that some time we won't be able to arrange it." 
 
 Shreds and tatters of chinchilla, courtesy clouds in the 
 green moon's heaven, were passing the green moon hke 
 precious Eastern stuffs paraded for the inspection of some 
 Tartar Khan. It seemed to John that it was day, and 
 that he was looking at some lads sailing above him in the 
 air, showering down tracts and patent medicine circu- 
 lars, with their messages of hope for despairing, rock- 
 bound hamlets. It seemed to him that he could see 
 them look down out of the clouds and stare — and stare 
 at whatever there was to stare at in this place whither 
 he was boimd — What then? Were they induced 
 to land by some insidious device there to be immured 
 far from patent medicines and from tracts until the judg- 
 ment day — or, should they fail to fall into the trap, 
 did a quick puff of smoke and the sharp round of a split- 
 ting shell bring them drooping to earth — and "upset" 
 Percy's mother and sisters. John shook his head and 
 the wraith of a hollow laugh issued silently from his 
 
I50 TALES OF THE JAZZ AGE 
 
 parted lips. What desperate transaction lay hidden 
 here ? What a moral expedient of a bizarre Croesus ? 
 What terrible and golden mystery ? . . . 
 
 The chinchilla clouds had drifted past now and out- 
 side the Montana night was bright as day. The tapes- 
 try brick of the road was smooth to the tread of the great 
 tires as they rounded a still, moonlit lake; they passed 
 into darkness for a moment, a pine grove, pungent and 
 cool, then they came out into a broad avenue of lawn 
 and John's exclamation of pleasure was simultaneous 
 with Percy's taciturn "We're home." 
 
 Full in the light of the stars, an exquisite chateau 
 rose from the borders of the lake, climbed in marble 
 radiance half the height of an adjoining mountain, then 
 melted in grace, in perfect symmetry, in translucent 
 feminine languor, into the massed darkness of a forest 
 of pine. The many towers, the slender tracery of the 
 sloping parapets, the chiselled wonder of a thousand 
 yellow windows with their oblongs and hectagons and 
 triangles of golden light, the shattered softness of the 
 intersecting planes of star-shine and blue shade, all 
 trembled on John's spirit like a chord of music. On one 
 of the towers, the tallest, the blackest at its base, an 
 arrangement of exterior lights at the top made a sort 
 of floating fairyland — and as John gazed up in warm 
 enchantment the faint acciaccare sound of violins 
 drifted down in a rococo harmony that was like nothing 
 he had ever heard before. Then in a moment the car 
 stopped before wide, high marble steps around which 
 the night air was fragrant with a host of flowers. At 
 the top of the steps two great doors swung silently 
 open and amber light flooded out upon the darkness, 
 silhouetting the figure of an exquisite lady with black, 
 high-piled hair, who held out her arms toward them. 
 
 "Mother," Percy was saying, "this is my friend, John 
 Unger, from Hades." 
 
THE DIAMOND AS BIG AS THE RITZ 151 
 
 Afterward John remembered that first night as a daze 
 of many colors, of quick sensory impressions, of music 
 soft as a voice in love, and of the beauty of things, lights 
 and shadows, and motions and faces. There was a white- 
 haired man who stood drinking a many-hued cordial 
 from a crystal thimble set on a golden stem. There 
 was a girl with a flowery face, dressed like Titania with 
 braided sapphires in her hair. There was a room where 
 the solid, soft gold of the walls yielded to the pressure 
 of his hand, and a room that was like a platonic con- 
 ception of the ultimate prison — ceiling, floor, and all, 
 it was lined with an unbroken mass of diamonds, dia- 
 monds of every size and shape, until, lit with taU violet 
 lamps in the corners, it dazzled the eyes with a white- 
 ness that could be compared only with itself, beyond 
 human wish or dream. 
 
 Through a maze of these rooms the two boys wan- 
 dred. Sometimes the floor under their feet would flame 
 in brilliant patterns from lighting below, patterns of 
 barbaric clashing colors, of pastel delicacy, of sheer white- 
 ness, or of subtle and intricate mosaic, surely from some 
 mosque on the Adriatic Sea. Sometimes beneath layers 
 of thick crystal he would see blue or green water swirl- 
 ing, inhabited by vivid fish and growths of rainbow 
 foliage. Then they would be treading on furs of 
 every texture and color or along corridors of palest 
 ivory, unbroken as though carved complete from the 
 gigantic tusks of dinosaurs extinct before the age of 
 man. . . . 
 
 Then a hazily remembered transition, and they were 
 at dinner — ^where each plate was of two ahnost imper- 
 ceptible layers of solid diamond between which was 
 curiously worked a filigree of emerald design, a shaving 
 sliced from green air. Music, plangent and unobtrusive, 
 drifted down through far corridors — ^his chair, feathered 
 and curved insidiously to his back, seemed to engulf 
 
152 TALES OF THE JAZZ AGE 
 
 and overpower him as he drank his first glass of port. 
 He tried drowsily to answer a question that had been 
 asked him, but the honeyed luxury that clasped his body 
 added to the illusion of sleep — ^jewels, fabrics, wines, and 
 metals blurred before his eyes into a sweet mist. . . . 
 
 "Yes," he replied with a polite effort, "it certainly is 
 hot enough for me down there." 
 
 He managed to add a ghostly laugh; then, without 
 movement, without resistance, he seemed to float off 
 and away, leaving an iced dessert that was pink as a 
 dream. . . . He fell asleep. 
 
 When he awoke he knew that several hours had 
 passed. He was in a great quiet room with ebony walls 
 and a duU illumiaation that was too faint, too subtle, 
 to be called a light. His young host was standing over 
 him. 
 
 "You fell asleep at dinner," Percy was saying. "I 
 nearly did, too — it was such a treat to be comfortable 
 again after this year of school. Servants vmdressed and 
 bathed you while you were sleeping." 
 
 "Is this a bed or a cloud?" sighed John. "Percy, 
 Percy — before you go, I want to apologize." 
 
 "For what?" 
 
 "For doubting you when you said you had a diamond 
 as big as the Ritz-Carlton Hotel." 
 
 Percy smiled. 
 
 "I thought you didn't believe me. It's that moun- 
 tain, you know." 
 
 "What mountain?" 
 
 "The mountain the chiteau rests on. It's not very 
 big, for a mountain. But except about fifty feet of sod 
 and gravel on top it's solid diamond. One diamond, 
 one cubic mile without a flaw. Aren't you listening? 
 Say " 
 
 But John T. Unger had again fallen asleep. 
 
THE DIAMOND AS BIG AS THE RITZ 153 
 
 ni 
 
 Morning. As he awoke he perceived drowsily that 
 the room had at the same moment become dense with 
 sunlight. The ebony panels of one wall had slid aside 
 on a sort of track, leaving his chamber half open to the 
 day. A large negro in a white uniform stood beside his 
 bed. 
 
 "Good-evening," muttered John, summoning his 
 brains from the wild places. 
 
 "Good-morning, sir. Are you ready for your bath, 
 sir? Oh, don't get up — I'll put you in, if you'll just 
 unbutton your pajamas — there. Thank you, sir." 
 
 John lay quietly as his pajamas were removed — he 
 was amused and delighted; he expected to be lifted like 
 a child by this black Gargantua who was tending him, 
 but nothing of the sort happened; instead he felt the 
 bed tilt up slowly on its side — ^he began to roll, startled 
 at first, in the direction of the wall, but when he reached 
 the wall its drapery gave way, and sliding two yards 
 farther down a fleecy incline he plumped gently into 
 water the same temperature as his body. 
 
 He looked about him. The runway or rollway on 
 which he had arrived had folded gently back into place. 
 He had been projected into another chamber and was 
 sitting in a sunken bath with his head just above the 
 level of the floor. All about him, lining the walls of the 
 room and the sides and bottom of the bath itself, was a 
 blue aquarium, and gazing through the crystal surface 
 on which he sat, he could see fish swimming among 
 amber lights and even gliding without curiosity past 
 his outstretched toes, which were separated from them 
 only by the thickness of the crystal. From overhead, 
 sunlight came down through sea-green glass. 
 
154 TALES OF THE JAZZ AGE 
 
 "I suppose, sir, that you'd like hot rosewater and 
 soapsuds this morning, sir — and perhaps cold salt water 
 to finish." 
 
 The negro was standing beside him. 
 
 "Yes," agreed John, smiling inanely, "as you please." 
 Any idea of ordering this bath according to his own 
 meagre standards of living would have been priggish 
 and not a little wicked. 
 
 The negro pressed a button and a warm rain began to 
 fall, apparently from overhead, but really, so John dis- 
 covered after a moment, from a fountain arrangement 
 near by. The water turned to a pale rose color and jets 
 of liquid soap spurted into it from four miniature wal- 
 rus heads at the corners of the bath. In a moment a 
 dozen little paddle-wheels, fixed to the sides, had churned 
 the mixture into a radiant rainbow of pink foam which 
 enveloped him softly with its delicious lightness, and 
 burst in shining, rosy bubbles here and there about him. 
 
 "Shall I turn on the moving-picture machine, sir?" 
 suggested the negro deferentially. "There's a good one- 
 reel comedy in this machine to-day, or I can put in a 
 serious piece in a moment, if you prefer it." 
 
 "No, thanks," answered John, politely but firmly. 
 He was enjoying his bath too much to desire any dis- 
 traction. But distraction came. In a moment he was 
 listening intently to the sound of flutes from just out- 
 side, flutes dripping a melody that was like a waterfall, 
 cool and green as the room itself, accompanying a frothy 
 piccolo, in play more fragile than the lace of suds that 
 covered and charmed him. 
 
 After a cold salt-water bracer and a cold fresh finish, 
 he stepped out and into a fleecy robe, and upon a couch 
 covered with the same material he was rubbed with oil, 
 alcohol, and spice. Later he sat in a voluptuous chair 
 while he was shaved and his hair was trimmed. 
 
THE DIAMOND AS BIG AS THE RITZ 155 
 
 "Mr. Percy is waiting in your sitting-room," said the 
 negro, when these operations were finished. "My name 
 is Gygsum, Mr. Unger, sir. I am to see to Mr. Unger 
 every morning." 
 
 John walked out into the brisk sunshine of his living- 
 room, where he found breakfast waiting for him and 
 Percy, gorgeous in white kid knickerbockers, smoking 
 in an easy chair. 
 
 IV 
 
 This is a story of the Washington family as Percy 
 sketched it for John during breakfast. 
 
 The father of the present Mr. Washington had been 
 a Virginian, a direct descendant of George Washington, 
 and Lord Baltimore. At the close of the Civil War he 
 was a twenty-five-year-old Colonel with a played-out 
 plantation and about a thousand dollars in gold. 
 
 Fitz-Norman Culpepper Washington, for that was the 
 young Colonel's name, decided to present the Virginia 
 estate to his younger brother and go West. He selected 
 two dozen of the most faithful blacks, who, of course, 
 worshipped him, and bought twenty-five tickets to the 
 West, where he intended to take out land in their names 
 and start a sheep and cattle ranch. 
 
 When he had been in Montana for less than a month 
 and things were going very poorly indeed, he stumbled 
 on his great discovery. He had lost his way when riding 
 in the hills, and after a day without food he began to 
 grow hungry. As he was without his rifle, he was forced 
 to pursue a squirrel, and in the course of the pursuit he 
 noticed that it was carrying something shiny in its 
 mouth. Just before it vanished into its hole — for Provi- 
 dence did not intend that this squirrel should alleviate 
 his hunger — ^it dropped its burden. Sitting down to 
 consider the situation Fitz-Norman's eye was caught 
 
156 TALES OF THE JAZZ AGE 
 
 by a gleam in the grass beside Mm. In ten seconds he 
 had completely lost his appetite and gained one hun- 
 dred thousand dollars. The squirrel, which had re- 
 fused with annoying persistence to become food, had 
 made him a present of a large and perfect diamond. 
 
 Late that night he found his way to camp and twelve 
 hours later all the males among his darkies were back 
 by the squirrel hole digging furiously at the side of the 
 mountain. He told them he had discovered a rhine- 
 stone mine, and, as only one or two of them had ever 
 seen even a small diamond before, they believed him, 
 without question. When the magnitude of his discovery 
 became apparent to him, he found himself in a quandary. 
 The mountain was a diamond — ^it was literally nothing 
 else but solid diamond. He filled four saddle bags full 
 of glittering samples and started on horseback for St. 
 Paul. There he managed to dispose of half a dozen 
 small stones — when he tried a larger one a storekeeper 
 fainted and Fitz-Norman was arrested as a public dis- 
 turber. He escaped from jail and caught the train for 
 New York, where he sold a few medium-sized diamonds 
 and received in exchange about two hundred thousand 
 dollars in gold. But he did not dare to produce any 
 exceptional gems — in fact, he left New York just in 
 time. Tremendous excitement had been created in 
 jewelry circles, not so much by the size of his diamonds 
 as by their appearance in the city from mysterious 
 sources. Wild rumors became current that a diamond 
 mine had been discovered in the Catskills, on the Jersey 
 coast, on Long Island, beneath Washington Square. 
 Excursion trains, packed with men carrying picks and 
 shovels, began to leave New York hourly, bound for 
 various neighboring El Dorados. But by that time 
 young Fitz-Norman was on his way back to Montana. 
 
 By the end of a fortnight he had estimated that the 
 
THE DIAMOND AS BIG AS THE RITZ 157 
 
 diamond in the mountain was approximately equal in 
 quantity to all the rest of the diamonds known to exist 
 in the world. There was no valuing it by any regular 
 computation, however, for it was one solid diamond — 
 and if it were offered for sale not only would the bottom 
 fall out of the market, but also, if the value should vary 
 with its size in the usual arithmetical progression, there 
 would not be enough gold in the world to buy a tenth 
 part of it. And what could any one do with a diamond 
 that size ? 
 
 It was an amazing predicament. He was, in one 
 sense," the richest man that ever lived — and yet was he 
 worth anything at all? If his secret should transpire 
 there was no telling to what measures the Government 
 might resort in order to prevent a panic, in gold as well 
 as in Jewels. They might take over the claim immedi- 
 ately and institute a monopoly. 
 
 There was no alternative — he must market his moun- 
 tain in secret. He sent South for his younger brother 
 and put him in charge of his colored following — darkies 
 who had never realized that slavery was abolished. To 
 make sure of this, he read them a proclamation that he 
 had composed, which announced that General Forrest 
 had reorganized the shattered Southern armies and de- 
 feated the North in one pitched battle. The negroes 
 believed him implicitly. They passed a vote declaring 
 it a good thing and held revival services immediately. 
 
 Fitz-Norman himself set out for foreign parts with 
 one hundred thousand doUars and two tnmks fiUed with 
 rough diamonds of all sizes. He sailed for Russia in a 
 Chinese junk and six months after his departure from 
 Montana he was in St. Petersburg. He took obscure 
 lodgings and called immediately upon the court jeweller, 
 announcing that he had a diamond for the Czar. He 
 remained in St. Petersburg for two weeks, in constant 
 
IS8 TALES OF THE JAZZ AGE 
 
 danger of being murdered, living from lodging to lodg- 
 ing, and afraid to visit his trunks more than three or 
 four times during the whole fortnight. 
 
 On his promise to return in a year with larger and finer 
 stones, he was allowed to leave for India. Before he 
 left, however, the Court Treasurers had deposited to 
 his credit, in American banks, the sum of fifteen million 
 dollars — ^under four different aliases. 
 
 He returned to America in 1868, having been gone a 
 little over two years. He had visited the capitals of 
 twenty- two countries and talked with five emperors, 
 eleven kings, three princes, a shah, a khan, and a sul- 
 tan. At that time Fitz-Norman estimated his own 
 wealth at one billion dollars. One fact worked consis- 
 tently against the disclosure of his secret. No one of 
 his larger diamonds remained in the public eye for a 
 week before being invested with a history of enough 
 fatalities, amours, revolutions, and wars to have occu- 
 pied it from the days of the first Babylonian Empire. 
 
 From 1870 until his death in 1900, the history of Fitz- 
 Norman Washington was a long epic in gold. There 
 were side issues, of course — he evaded the surveys, he 
 married a Virginia lady, by whom he had a single son, 
 and he was compelled, due to a series of unfortunate 
 complications, to murder his brother, whose unfortunate 
 habit of drinking himself into an indiscreet stupor had 
 several times endangered their safety. But very few 
 other murders stained these happy years of progress 
 and expansion. 
 
 Just before he died he changed his policy, and with all 
 but a few million dollars of his outside wealth bought 
 up rare minerals in bulk, which he deposited in the safety 
 vaults of banks all over the world, marked as bric-a-brac. 
 His son, Braddock Tarleton Washington, followed this 
 policy on an even more tensive scale. The minerals 
 
THE DIAMOND AS BIG AS THE RITZ 159 
 
 were converted into the rarest of all elements — radium 
 — so that the equivalent of a billion dollars in gold could 
 be placed in a receptacle no bigger than a cigar box. 
 
 When Fitz-Norman had been dead three years his 
 son, Braddock, decided that the business had gone far 
 enough. The amount of wealth that he and his father 
 had taken out of the mountain was beyond all exact 
 computation. He kept a note-book in cipher in which 
 he set down the approximate quantity of radium in 
 each of the thousand banks he patronized, and recorded 
 the alias under which it was held. Then he did a very 
 simple thing — ^he sealed up the mine. 
 
 He sealed up the mine. What had been taken out of 
 it would support all the Washingtons yet to be born in 
 unparalleled luxury for generations. His one care must 
 be the protection of his secret, lest in the possible panic 
 attendant on its discovery he should be reduced with 
 all the property-holders in the world to utter poverty. 
 
 This was the family among whom John T. Unger was 
 staying. This was the story he heard in his silver- 
 walled living-room the morning after his arrival. 
 
 After breakfast, John found hi's way out the great 
 marble entrance, and looked curiously at. the scene be- 
 fore him. The whole valley, from the diamond moun- 
 tain to the steep granite cliff five miles away, still gave 
 off a breath of golden haze which hovered idly above 
 the fine sweep of lawns and lakes and gardens. Here 
 and there clusters of elms made delicate groves of shade, 
 contrasting strangely with the tough masses of pine 
 forest that held the hills in a grip of dark-blue green. 
 Even as John looked he saw three fawns in single file 
 patter out from one clump about a half mile away and 
 
i6o TALES OF THE JAZZ AGE 
 
 disappear with awkward gayety into the black-ribbed 
 half-light of another. John would not have been sur- 
 prised to see a goat-foot piping his way among the trees 
 or to catch a glimpse of pink nymph-skin and flying 
 yellow hair between the greenest of the green leaves. 
 
 In some such cool hope he descended the marble 
 steps, disturbing faintly the sleep of two silky Russian 
 wolfhounds at the bottom, and set oflf along a walk of 
 white and blue brick that seemed to lead in no par- 
 ticular direction. 
 
 He was enjoying himself as much as he was able. It 
 is youth's felicity as well as its insufificiency that it can 
 never live in the present, but must always be measuring 
 up the day against its own radiantly imagined future — 
 flowers and gold, girls and stars, they are only prefigura- 
 tions and prophecies of that incomparable, unattaina- 
 ble young dream. 
 
 John rounded a soft comer where the massed rose- 
 bushes filled the air with heavy scent, and struck off 
 across a park toward a patch of moss under some trees. 
 He had never lain upon moss, and he wanted to see 
 whether it was really soft enough to justify the use of 
 its name as an adjective. Then he saw a girl coming 
 toward him over the grass. She was the most beau- 
 tiful person he had ever seen. 
 
 She was dressed in a white little gown that came just 
 below her knees, and a wreath of mignonettes clasped 
 with blue slices of sapphire bound up her hair. Her pink 
 bare feet scattered the dew before them as she came. 
 She was younger than John — not more than sixteen. 
 
 "Hello," she cried softly, "I'm Kismine." 
 
 She was much more than that to John already. He 
 advanced toward her, scarcely moving as he drew near 
 lest he should tread on her bare toes. 
 
 "You haven't met me," said her soft voice. Her blue 
 
THE DIAMOND AS BIG AS THE RITZ i6i 
 
 eyes added, " Oh, but you've missed a great deal ! " . . , 
 "You met my sister. Jasmine, last night. I was sick 
 with lettuce poisoning," went on her soft voice, and her 
 eyes continued, "and when I'm sick I'm sweet — and 
 when I'm well." 
 
 "You have made an enormous impression on me," 
 said John's eyes, "and I'm not so slow myself" — "How 
 do you do ?" said his voice. "I hope you're better this 
 morning." — "You darling," added his eyes tremulously, 
 
 John observed that they had been walking along 
 the path. On her suggestion they sat down together 
 upon the moss, the softness of which he failed to deter- 
 mine. 
 
 He was critical about women. A single defect — a 
 thick ankle, a hoarse voice, a glass eye — was enough to 
 make him utterly indifferent. And here for the first 
 time in his life he was beside a girl who seemed to him 
 the incarnation of physical perfection. 
 
 "Are you from the East?" asked Kismine with 
 charming interest. 
 
 "No," answered John simply. "I'm from Hades." 
 
 Either she had never heard of Hades, or she could 
 think of no pleasant comment to make upon it, for she 
 did not discuss it further. 
 
 "I'm going East to school this fall," she said. " D'you 
 think I'll like it? I'm going to New York to Miss 
 Bulge's. It's very strict, but you see over the week- 
 ends I'm going to live at home with the family in our 
 New York house, because father heard that the girls 
 had to go walking two by two." 
 
 "Your father wants you to be proud," observed 
 John. 
 
 "We are," she answered, her eyes shining with dig- 
 nity. "None of us has ever been punished. Father 
 said we never should be. Once when my sister Jasmine 
 
i62 TALES OF THE JAZZ AGE 
 
 was a little girl she pushed him down-stairs and he Just 
 got up and limped away. 
 
 "Mother was — well, a little startled," continued Kis- 
 mine, " when she heard that you were from- — from where 
 you are from, you know. She said that when she was 
 a young girl — ^but then, you see, she's a Spaniard and 
 old-fashioned." 
 
 "Do you spend much time out here?" asked John, 
 to conceal the fact that he was somewhat hurt by this 
 remark. It seemed an imkind allusion to his provin- 
 cialism. 
 
 "Percy and Jasmine and I are here every summer, 
 but next summer Jasmine is going to Newport. She's 
 coming out in London a year from this fall. She'll be 
 presented at court." 
 
 "Do you know," began John hesitantly, "you're 
 much more sophisticated than I thought you were when 
 I first saw you ? " 
 
 "Oh, no, I'm not," she exclaimed hurriedly. "Oh, 
 I wouldn't think of being. I think that sophisticated 
 young people are terribly common, don't you ? I'm not 
 at all, really. If you say I am, I'm going to cry." 
 
 She was so distressed that her lip was trembling. 
 John was impelled to protest: 
 
 "I didn't mean that; I only said it to tease you." 
 
 "Because I wouldn't mind if I were," she persisted, 
 "but I'm not. I'm very innocent and girlish. I never 
 smoke, or drink, or read anything except poetry. I 
 know scarcely any mathematics or chemistry. I dress 
 very simply — in fact, I scarcely dress at all. I think 
 sophisticated is the last thing you can say about me. I 
 believe that girls ought to enjoy their youths in a 
 wholesome way." 
 
 "I do, too," said John heartily. 
 
 Kismine was cheerful again. She smiled at him, and 
 
THE DIAMOND AS BIG AS THE RITZ 163 
 
 a still-born tear dripped from the corner of one blue 
 eye. 
 
 "I like you," she whispered, intimately. "Are you 
 going to spend all your time with Percy while you're 
 here, or will you be nice to me ? Just think — I'm abso- 
 lutely fresh ground. I've never had a boy in love with 
 me in all my life. I've never been allowed even to see 
 boys alone — except Percy. I came all the way out here 
 into this grove hoping to run into you, where the family 
 wouldn't be around." 
 
 Deeply flattered, John bowed from the hips as he had 
 been taught at dancing school in Hades. 
 
 "We'd better go now," said Kismine sweetly. "I 
 have to be with mother at eleven. You haven't asked 
 me to kiss you once. I thought boys always did that 
 nowadays." 
 
 John drew himself up proudly. 
 
 "Some of them do," he answered, "but not me. 
 Girls don't do that sort of thing — in Hades." 
 
 Side by side they walked back toward the house. 
 
 VI 
 
 John stood facing Mr. Braddock Washington in the 
 full sunlight. The elder man was about forty with a 
 proud, vacuous face, intelligent eyes, and a robust figure. 
 In the mornings he smelt of horses — the best horses. He 
 carried a plain walking-stick of gray birch with a single 
 large opal for a grip. He and Percy were showing John 
 around. 
 
 "The slaves' quarters are there." His walking-stick 
 indicated a cloister of marble on their left that ran in 
 graceful Gothic along the side of the mountain. "In 
 my youth I was distracted for a while from the business 
 of life by a period of absurd idealism. During that 
 
i64 TALES OF THE JAZZ AGE 
 
 time they lived in luxury. For instance, I equipped 
 every one of their rooms with a tile bath." 
 
 "I suppose," ventured John, with an ingratiating 
 laugh, "that they used the bathtubs to keep coal in. 
 
 Mr. Schnlitzer-Murphy told me that once he " 
 
 "The opinions of Mr. Schnlitzer-Murphy are of little 
 importance, I should imagine," interrupted Braddock 
 Washington, coldly. "My slaves did not keep coal in 
 their bathtubs. They had orders to bathe every day, 
 and they did. If they hadn't I might have ordered a 
 sulphuric acid shampoo. I discontinued the baths for 
 quite another reason. Several of them caught cold and 
 died.-- Water is not good for certain races — except as a 
 beverage." 
 
 John laughed, and then decided to nod his head in 
 sober agreement. Braddock Washington made him 
 imcomfortable. 
 
 "All these negroes are descendants of the ones my 
 father brought North with him. There are about two 
 hundred and fifty now. You notice that they've lived 
 so long apart from the world that their original dialect 
 has become an almost indistinguishable patois. We 
 bring a few of them up to speak English — my secretary 
 and two or three of the house servants. 
 
 "This is the golf course," he continued, as they stroUed 
 along the velvet winter grass. "It's all a green, you see 
 — ^no fairway, no rough, no hazards." 
 
 He smiled pleasantly at John. 
 
 "Many men in the cage, father?" asked Percy sud- 
 denly. 
 
 Braddock Washington stumbled, and let forth an in- 
 voluntary curse. 
 
 "One less than there should be," he ejaculated darkly 
 — and then added after a moment, "We've had diflB- 
 culties." 
 
THE DIAMOND AS BIG AS THE RITZ 165 
 
 "Mother was telling me," exclaimed Percy, "that 
 Italian teacher " 
 
 "A ghastly error," said Braddock Washington angrily. 
 "But of course there's a good chance that we may have 
 got him. Perhaps he fell somewhere in the woods or 
 stumbled over a cliff. And then there's always the prob- 
 ability that if he did get away his story wouldn't be 
 believed. Nevertheless, I've had two dozen men look- 
 ing for him in different towns around here." 
 
 "And no luck?" 
 
 " Some. Fourteen of them reported to my agent 
 that they'd each killed a man answering to that descrip- 
 tion, but of course it was probably only the reward 
 they were after " 
 
 He broke off. They had come to a large cavity in 
 the earth about the circumference of a merry-go-round 
 and covered by a strong iron grating. Braddock Wash- 
 ington beckoned to John, and pointed his cane down 
 through the grating. John stepped to the edge and 
 gazed. Immediately his ears were assailed by a wild 
 clamor from below. 
 
 "Come on down to Hell!" 
 
 "Hello, kiddo, how's the air up there?" 
 
 "Hey ! Throw us a rope !" 
 
 " Got an old doughnut, Buddy, or a couple of second- 
 hand sandwiches ? " 
 
 "Say, fella, if you'll push down that guy you're 
 with, we'll show you a quick disappearance scene." 
 
 "Paste him one for me, wiQ you ?" 
 
 It was too dark to see clearly into the pit below, but 
 John could tell from the coarse optimism and rugged 
 vitality of the remarks and voices that they proceeded 
 from middle-class Americans of the more spirited type. 
 Then Mr. Washington put out his cane and touched a 
 button in the grass, and the scene below sprang into light. 
 
i66 TALES OF THE JAZZ AGE 
 
 "These are some adventurous mariners who had the 
 misfortune to discover El Dorado," he remarked. 
 
 Below them there had appeared a large hollow in the 
 earth shaped like the interior of a bowl. The sides were 
 steep and apparently of polished glass, and on its slightly 
 concave surface stood about two dozen men clad in 
 the half costume, half uniform, of aviators. Their up- 
 turned faces, lit with wrath, with malice, with despair, 
 with cynical humor, were covered by long growths of 
 beard, but with the exception of a few who had pined 
 perceptibly away, they seemed to be a well-fed, healthy 
 lot. 
 
 Braddock Washington drew a garden chair to the 
 edge of the pit and sat down. 
 
 "Well, how are you, boys ?" he inquired genially. 
 
 A chorus of execration in which all joined except a 
 few too dispirited to cry out, rose up into the sunny 
 air, but Braddock Washington heard it with unruffled 
 composure. When its last echo had died away he spoke 
 again. 
 
 "Have you thought up a way out of your difficulty ?" 
 
 From here and there among them a remark floated up. 
 
 "We decided to stay here for love!" 
 
 "Bring us up there and we'll find us a way!" 
 
 Braddock Washington waited until they were again 
 quiet. Then he said: 
 
 "I've told you the situation. I don't want you here. 
 I wish to heaven I'd never seen you. Your own curi- 
 osity got you here, and any time that you can think 
 of a way out which protects me and my interests I'U 
 be glad to consider it. But so long as you confine your 
 efforts to digging tunnels — ^yes, I know about the new 
 one you've started — you won't get very far. This 
 isn't as hard on you as you make it out, with all your 
 howling for the loved ones at home. If you were the 
 
THE DIAMOND AS BIG AS THE RITZ 167 
 
 type who worried much about the loved ones at home, 
 you'd never have taken up aviation." 
 
 A tall man moved apart from the others, and held up 
 his hand to call his captor's attention to what he was 
 about to say. 
 
 "Let me ask you a few questions!" he cried. "You 
 pretend to be a fair-minded man." 
 
 "How absurd. How could a man of my position be 
 fair-minded toward you ? You might as well speak of a 
 Spaniard being fair-minded toward a piece of steak." 
 
 At this harsh observation the faces of the two dozen 
 steaks fell, but the tall man continued: 
 
 "All right!" he cried. "We've argued this out be- 
 fore. You're not a humanitarian and you're not fair- 
 minded, but you're human — at least you say you are — 
 and you ought to be able to put yourself in our place 
 for long enough to think how — ^how — how 
 
 "How what?" demanded Washington, coldly. 
 
 " — how unnecessary " 
 
 "Not to me." 
 
 "Well,— how cruel " 
 
 "We've covered that. Cruelty doesn't exist where 
 self-preservation is involved. You've been soldiers; you 
 know that. Try another." 
 
 "Well, then, how stupid." 
 
 "There," admitted Washington, "I grant you that. 
 But try to think of an alternative. I've offered to have 
 all or any of you painlessly executed if you wish. I've 
 offered to have your wives, sweethearts, children, and 
 mothers kidnapped and brought out here. I'll enlarge 
 your place down there and feed and clothe you the rest 
 of your lives. If there was some method of producing 
 permanent amnesia I'd have all of you operated on and 
 released immediately, somewhere outside of my pre- 
 serves. But that's as far as my ideas go." 
 
i68 TALES OF THE JAZZ AGE 
 
 "How about trusting us not to peach on you ?" cried 
 some one. 
 
 "You don't proffer that suggestion seriously," said 
 Washington, with an expression of scorn. "I did take 
 cut one man to teach my daughter Italian. Last week 
 he got away." 
 
 A wild yeU of jubilation went up suddenly from two 
 dozen throats and a pandemonium of joy ensued. The 
 prisoners clog-danced and cheered and yodled and 
 ■Wrestled with one another in a sudden uprush of animal 
 spirits. They even ran up the glass sides of the bowl as 
 far as they could, and slid back to the bottom upon the 
 natural cushions of their bodies. The tall man started 
 a song in which they all joined 
 
 "Oh, we'll hang the kaiser 
 On a sour apple tree " 
 
 Braddock Washington sat in inscrutable silence until 
 the song was over. 
 
 "You see," he remarked, when he could gain a modi- 
 cum of attention. "I bear you no ill-will. I like to 
 see you enjoying yourselves. That's why I didn't 
 tell you the whole story at once. The man — what was 
 his name .'' CritchtichieUo ? — was shot by some of my 
 agents in fourteen different places." 
 
 Not guessing that the places referred to were cities, 
 the tumult of rejoicing subsided immediately. 
 
 "Nevertheless," cried Washington with a touch of 
 anger, "he tried to run away. Do j'ou expect me to 
 take chances with any of you after an experience like 
 that?" 
 
 Again a series of ejaculations went up. 
 
 "Sure!" 
 
 "Would your daughter like to learn Chinese ?" 
 
THE DIAMOND AS BIG AS THE RITZ 16, 
 
 "Hey, I can speak Italian ! My mother was a wop." 
 
 "Maybe she'd like t'learna speak N'Yawk!" 
 
 "If she's the little one with the big blue eyes I can 
 teach her a lot of things better than Italian." 
 
 "I know some Irish songs — and I could hammer 
 brass once't." 
 
 Mr. Washington reached forward suddenly with his 
 cane and pushed the button in the grass so that the pic- 
 ture below went out instantly, and there remained only 
 that great dark mouth covered dismally with the black 
 teeth of the grating. 
 
 "Hey!" called a single voice from below, "you ain't 
 goin' away without givin' us your blessing ?" 
 
 But Mr. Washington, followed by the two boys, was 
 already stroUing on toward the ninth hole of the golf 
 course, as though the pit and its contents were no more 
 than a hazard over which his facile iron had trixunphed 
 with CEise. 
 
 vn 
 
 July under the lee of the diamond mountain was a 
 month of blanket nights and of warm, glowing days. 
 John and Kismine were in love. He did not know that 
 the little gold football (inscribed with the legend Pro 
 deo et patria et St. Mida) which he had given her 
 rested on a platinum chain next to her bosom. But it 
 did. And she for her part was not aware that a large 
 sapphire which had dropped one day from her simple 
 coiffure was stowed away tenderly in John's jewel box. 
 
 Late one afternoon when the ruby and ermine music 
 room was quiet, they spent an hour there together. He 
 held her hand and she gave him such a look that he whis- 
 pered her name aloud. She bent toward him — then 
 hesitated. 
 
 "Did you say 'Kismine' ?" she asked softly, "or " 
 
,o TALES OF THE JAZZ AGE 
 
 She had wanted to be sure. She thought she might 
 have misunderstood. 
 
 Neither of them had ever kissed before, but in the 
 course of an hour it seemed to make little difference. 
 
 The afternoon drifted away. That night when a last 
 breath of music drifted down from the highest tower, 
 they each lay awake, happily dreaming over the sepa- 
 rate minutes of the day. They had decided to be mar- 
 ried as soon as possible. 
 
 vm 
 
 Every day Mr. Washington and the two young men 
 went hunting or fishing in the deep forests or played 
 golf around the somnolent course — ^games which John 
 diplomatically allowed his host to win — or swam in the 
 mountain coolness of the lake. John found Mr. Wash- 
 ington a somewhat exacting personality — utterly lui- 
 interested in any ideas or opinions except his own. Mrs. 
 Washington was aloof and reserved at all times. She 
 was apparently indifferent to her two daughters, and 
 entirely absorbed in her son Percy, with whom she held 
 interminable conversations in rapid Spanish at dinner. 
 
 Jasmine, the elder daughter, resembled Kismine in 
 appearance — except that she was somewhat bow-legged, 
 and terminated in large hands and feet — ^but was utterly 
 unlike her in temperament. Her favorite books had to 
 do with poor girls who kept house for widowed fathers. 
 John learned from Kismine that Jasmine had never 
 recovered from the shock and disappointment caused 
 her by the termination of the World War, just as she 
 was about to start for Europe as a canteen expert. She 
 had even pined away for a time, and Braddock Wash- 
 ington had taken steps to promote a new war in the 
 Balkans — ^but she had seen a photograph of some 
 
THE DIAMOND AS BIG AS THE RITZ 171 
 
 wounded Serbian soldiers and lost interest in the whole 
 proceedings. But Percy and Kismine seemed to have 
 inherited the arrogant attitude in all its harsh mag- 
 nificence from their father. A chaste and consistent 
 selfishness ran like a pattern through their every idea. 
 
 John was enchanted by the wonders of the chateau 
 and the valley. Braddock Washington, so Percy told 
 him, had caused to be kidnapped a landscape gardener, 
 an architect, a designer of state settings, and a French 
 decadent poet left over from the last century. He had 
 put his entire force of negroes at their disposal, guar- 
 anteed to supply them with any materials that the world 
 could offer, and left them to work out some ideas of 
 their own. But one by one they had shown their use- 
 lessness. The decadent poet had at once begun be- 
 wailing his separation from the boulevards in spring — 
 he made some vague remarks about spices, apes, and 
 ivories, but said nothing that was of any practical value. 
 The stage designer on his part wanted to make the whole 
 valley a series of tricks and sensational effects — a state 
 of things that the Washingtons would soon have grown 
 tired of. And as for the architect and the landscape 
 gardener, they thought only in terms of convention. 
 They must make this like this and that like that. 
 
 But they had, at least, solved the problem of what 
 was to be done with them — they all went mad early 
 one morning after spending the night in a single room 
 trying to agree upon the location of a fountain, and were 
 now confined comfortably in an insane asylum at West- 
 port, Connecticut. 
 
 "But," inquired John curiously, "who did plan all 
 your wonderful reception rooms and halls, and ap- 
 proaches and bathrooms ?" 
 
 "Well," answered Percy, "I blush to tell you, but it 
 was a moving-picture fella. He was the only man we 
 
172 TALES OF THE JAZZ AGE 
 
 found who was used to playing with an unlimited 
 amount of money, though he did tuck his napkin in his 
 collar and couldn't read or write." 
 
 As August drew to a close John began to regret that he 
 must soon go back to school. He and Kismine had de- 
 cided to elope the following June. 
 
 "It would be nicer to be married here," Kismine con- 
 fessed, "but of course I could never get father's permis- 
 sion to marry you at all. Next to that I'd rather elope. 
 It's terrible for wealthy people to be married in America 
 at present — they always have to send out bulletins to 
 the press sajdng that they're going to be married in 
 remnants, when what they mean is just a peck of old 
 second-hand pearls and some used lace worn once by 
 the Empress Eugenie." 
 
 "I know," agreed John fervently. "When I was 
 visiting the Schnlitzer-Muiphys, the eldest daughter, 
 Gwendolyn, married a man whose father owns half of 
 West Virginia. She wrote home saying what a tough 
 struggle she was carrying on on his salary as a bank 
 clerk — and then she ended up by saying that 'Thank 
 God, I have four good maids anyhow, and that helps 
 ahttle.'" 
 
 "It's absurd," commented Kismine. "Think of the 
 millions and millions of people in the world, laborers 
 and all, who get along with only two maids." 
 
 One afternoon late in August a chance remark of 
 Kismine's changed the face of the entire situation, and 
 threw John into a state of terror. 
 
 They were in their favorite grove, and between kisses 
 John was indulging in some romantic forebodings which 
 he fancied added poignancy to their relations. 
 
 "Sometimes I think we'll never marry," he said sadly. 
 "You're too wealthy, too magnificent. No one as rich 
 as you are can be like other girls. I should marry the 
 
THE DIAMOND AS BIG AS THE RITZ 173 
 
 daughter of some well-to-do wholesale hardware man 
 from Omaha or Sioux City, and be content with her half- 
 million." 
 
 "I knew the daughter of a wholesale hardware man 
 once," remarked Kismine. "I don't think you'd have 
 been contented with her. She was a friend of my sis- 
 ter's. She visited here." 
 
 "Oh, then you've had other guests ?" exclaimed John 
 in surprise. 
 
 Kismine seemed to regret her words. 
 
 "Oh, yes," she said hurriedly, "we've had a few." 
 
 "But aren't you — wasn't your father afraid they'd 
 talk outside?" 
 
 "Oh, to some extent, to some extent," she answered. 
 "Let's talk about something pleasanter." 
 
 But John's curiosity was aroused. 
 
 "Something pleasanter!" he demanded. "What's 
 unpleasant about that ? Weren't they nice girls ? " 
 
 To his great surprise Kismine began to weep. 
 
 "Yes — th — that's the — the whole t-trouble. I grew 
 qu-quite attached to some of them. So did Jasmine, 
 but she kept inv-viting them anyway. I cotildn't 
 understand it." 
 
 A dark suspicion was born in John's heart. 
 
 "Do you mean that they fold, and your father had 
 them — removed ? " 
 
 "Worse than that," she muttered brokenly. "Father 
 took no chances — and Jasmine kept writing them to 
 come, and they had such a good time!" 
 
 She was overcome by a paroxysm of grief. 
 
 Stunned with the horror of this revelation, John sat 
 there open-mouthed, feeling the nerves of his body twitter 
 like so many sparrows perched upon his spinal column. 
 
 "Now, I've told you, and I shouldn't have," she said, 
 calming suddenly and drying her dark blue eyes. 
 
174 TALES OF THE JAZZ AGE 
 
 "Do you mean to say that your father had them 
 murdered before they left ? " 
 
 She nodded. 
 
 "In August usually — or early in September. It's' 
 only natural for us to get all the pleasure out of them 
 that we can first." 
 
 "How abominable! How — ^why, I must be going 
 crazy ! Did you reaUy admit that " 
 
 "I did," interrupted Kismine, shrugging her should- 
 ers. "We can't very well imprison them like those 
 aviators, where they'd be a continual reproach to us 
 every day. And it's always been made easier for Jas- 
 mine and me, because father had it done sooner than 
 we expected. In that way we avoided any farewell 
 scene " 
 
 " So you murdered them ! Uh ! " cried John. 
 
 "It was done very nicely. They were drugged while 
 they were asleep — and their families were always told 
 that they died of scarlet fever in Butte." 
 
 "But — I fail to understand why you kept on inviting 
 them!" 
 
 "I didn't," burst out Kismine. "I never invited one. 
 Jasmine did. And they always had a very good time. 
 She'd give them the nicest presents toward the last, 
 I shall probably have visitors too — I'll harden up to it. 
 We can't let such an inevitable thing as death stand in 
 the way of enjoying life while we have it. Think how 
 lonesome it'd be out here if we never had any one. Why, 
 father and mother have sacrificed some of their best 
 friends just as we have." 
 
 "And so," cried John accusingly, "and so you were 
 letting me make love to you and pretending to return 
 it, and talking about marriage, all the time knowing 
 perfectly well that I'd never get out of here alive " 
 
 "No," she protested passionately. "Not any more. 
 
THE DIAMOND AS BIG AS THE RITZ 175 
 
 I did at first. You were here. I cotildn't help that, and 
 I thought your last days might as well be pleasant for 
 both of us. But then I fell in love with you, and — and 
 I'm honestly sorry you're going to — going to be put 
 away — though I'd rather you'd be put away than ever 
 kiss another girl." 
 
 "Oh, you would, would you ?" cried John ferociously. 
 
 "Much rather. Besides, I've always heard that a 
 girl can have more fun with a man whom she knows 
 she can never marry. Oh, why did I tell you? I've 
 probably spoiled your whole good time now, and we 
 were really enjoying things when you didn't know it. I 
 knew it would make things sort of depressing for you." 
 
 "Oh, you did, did you ?" John's voice trembled with 
 anger. "I've heard about enough of this. If you 
 haven't any more pride and decency than to have an 
 affair with a fellow that you know isn't much better 
 than a corpse, I don't want to have any more to do with 
 you!" 
 
 "You're not a corpse!" she protested in horror. 
 "You're not a corpse! I won't have you saying that 
 I kissed a corpse ! " 
 
 "I said nothing of the sort !" 
 
 "You did! You said I kissed a corpse!" 
 
 "I didn't!" 
 
 Their voices had risen, but upon a sudden interrup- 
 tion they both subsided into immediate silence. Foot- 
 steps were coming along the path in their direction, 
 and a moment later the rose bushes were parted display- 
 ing Braddock Washington, whose intelligent eyes set 
 in his good-looking vacuous face were peering in at them. 
 
 "Who kissed a corpse?" he demanded in obvious 
 disapproval. 
 
 "Nobody," answered Kismine quickly. "We were 
 Just joking." 
 
176 TALES OF THE JAZZ AGE 
 
 "What are you two doing here, anyhow?" he de- 
 manded gruffly. "Kismine, you ought to be — to be 
 reading or playing golf with your sister. Go read ! Go 
 play golf! Don't let me find you here when I come 
 back!" 
 
 Then he bowed at John and went up the path. 
 
 "See.''" said Kismine crossly, when he was out of 
 hearing. "You've spoiled iL all. We can never meet 
 any more. He won't let me meet you . He'd have you 
 poisoned if he thought we were in love." 
 
 "We're not, any more!" cried John fiercely, "so he 
 can set his mind at rest upon that. Moreover, don't 
 fool yourself that I'm going to stay around here. Inside 
 of six hours I'll be over those mountains, if I have to 
 gnaw a passage through them, and on my way East." 
 
 They had both got to their feet, and at this remark 
 Kismine came close and put her arm through his. 
 
 "I'm going, too." 
 
 "You must be crazy " 
 
 "Of course I'm going," she interrupted impatiently. 
 
 "You most certainly are not. You " 
 
 "Very well," she said quietly, "we'll catch up with 
 father now and talk it over with him." 
 
 Defeated, John mustered a sickly smile. 
 
 "Very well, dearest," he agreed, with pale and uncon- 
 vincing affection, "we'll go together." 
 
 His love for her returned and settled placidly on his 
 heart. She was his — she would go with him to share 
 his dangers. He put his arms about her and kissed her 
 fervently. After all she loved him; she had saved him, 
 in fact. 
 
 Discussing the matter, they walked slowly back toward 
 the chS,teau. They decided that since Braddock Wash- 
 ington had seen them together they had best depart 
 the next night. Nevertheless, John's lips were unusu- 
 
THE DIAMOND AS BIG AS THE RITZ 177 
 
 ally dry at dinner, and he nervously emptied a great 
 spoonful of peacock soup into his left lung. He had to 
 be carried into the turquoise and sable card-room and 
 pounded on the back by one of the under-butlers, which 
 Percy considered a great joke. 
 
 rx 
 
 Long after midnight John's body gave a nervous jerk, 
 and he sat suddenly upright, staring into the veils of 
 somnolence that draped the room. Through the squares 
 of blue darkness that were his open windows, he had 
 heard a faint far-away soimd that died upon a bed of 
 wind before identifying itself on his memory, clouded 
 with uneasy dreams. But the sharp noise that had suc- 
 ceeded it was nearer, was just outside the room — the 
 click of a turned knob, a footstep, a whisper, he could 
 not tell; a hard lump gathered in the pit of his stomach, 
 and his whole body ached in the moment that he strained 
 agonizingly to hear. Then one of the veils seemed to 
 dissolve, and he saw a vague figure standing by the door, 
 a figure only faintly limned and blocked in upon the 
 darkness, mingled so with the folds of the drapery as 
 to seem distorted, like a reflection seen in a dirty pane 
 of glass. 
 
 With a sudden movement of fright or resolution John 
 pressed the button by his bedside, and the next moment 
 he was sitting in the green sunken bath of the adjoining 
 room, waked into alertness by the shock of the cold 
 water which half filled it. 
 
 He sprang out, and, his wet pajamas scattering a 
 heavy trickle of water behind him, ran for the aqua- 
 marine door which he knew led out onto the ivory 
 landing of the second floor. The door opened noise- 
 lessly. A single crimson lamp burning in a great dome 
 
178 TALES OF THE JAZZ AGE 
 
 above lit the magnificent sweep of the carved stair- 
 ways with a poignant beauty. For a moment John 
 hesitated, appalled by the silent splendor massed about 
 him, seeming to envelop in its gigantic folds and contours 
 the solitary drenched little figure shivering upon the 
 ivory landing. Then simultaneously two things hap- 
 pened. The door of his own sitting-room swung open, 
 precipitating three naked negroes into the hall — and, 
 as John swayed in wild terror toward the stairway, an- 
 other door slid back in the wall on the other side of the 
 corridor, and John saw Braddock Washington standing 
 in the lighted lift, wearing a fur coat and a pair of riding 
 boots which reached to his knees and displayed, above, 
 the glow of his rose-colored pajamas. 
 
 On the instant the three negroes — ^John had never 
 seen any of them before, and it flashed through his mind 
 that they must be the professional executioners — paused 
 in their movement toward John, and turned expectantly 
 to the man in the hft, who burst out with an imperious 
 command: 
 
 " Get in here ! All three of you ! Quick as hell !" 
 
 Then, within the instant, the three negroes darted 
 into the cage, the oblong of light was blotted out as the 
 lift door slid shut, and John was again alone in the hall. 
 He slumped weakly down against an ivory stair. 
 
 It was apparent that something portentous had oc- 
 curred, something which, for the moment at least, had 
 postponed his own petty disaster. What was it ? Had 
 the negroes risen in revolt ? Had the aviators forced 
 aside the iron bars of the grating ? Or had the men of 
 Fish stumbled blindly through the hUIs and gazed with 
 bleak, joyless eyes upon the gaudy valley? John did 
 not know. He heard a faint whir of air as the lift 
 whizzed up again, and then, a moment later, as it de- 
 scended. It was probable that Percy was hurr^^ing to 
 
THE DIAMOND AS BIG AS THPi RITZ 179 
 
 his father's assistance, and it occurred to John that this 
 was his opportunity to join Easmine jind plan an im- 
 mediate escape. He waited until the ^ lift had been si- 
 lent for several minutes; shivering a litile with the night 
 cool that whipped in through his wet ipajamas, he re- 
 turned to his room and dressed himselt' quickly. Then 
 he mounted a long flight of stairs and ■umed down the 
 corridor carpeted with Russian sable \\hich led to Kis- 
 mine's suite. 
 
 The door of her sitting-room was op'en and the lamps 
 were lighted. Kismine, in an angora kimono, stood 
 near the window of the room in a listerang attitude, and 
 as John entered noiselessly she turned toward him. 
 
 "Oh, it's you!" she whispered, crossing the room to> 
 him. "Did you hear them .'"' 
 
 "I heard your father's slaves in my " 
 
 "No," she interrupted excitedly. "Aeroplanes!" 
 "Aeroplanes ? Perhaps that was the sound that woke 
 me." 
 
 "There're at least a dozen. I saw one a few moments 
 ago dead against the moon. The guard back by the 
 cliff fired his rifle and that's what roused father. We're 
 going to open on them right away." 
 "Are they here on purpose?" 
 
 "Yes — ^it's that Italian who got away " 
 
 Simultaneously with her last word, a succession of 
 sharp cracks tumbled in through the open window. 
 Kismine uttered a little cry, took a penny with fumbling 
 fingers from a box on her dresser, and ran to one of the 
 electric lights. In an instant the entire ch3.teau was in 
 darkness — she had blown out the fuse. 
 
 " Come on ! " she cried to him. "We'll go up to the roof 
 garden, and watch it from there!" 
 
 Drawing a cape about her, she took his hand, and they 
 foimd their way out the door. It was only a step to 
 
i8o T.VLES OF THE JAZZ AGE 
 
 the tower lift, and as she pressed the button that shot 
 them upward he y)ut his arms around her in the darkness 
 and kissed her yiouth. Romance had come to John 
 Unger at last. A minute later they had stepped out 
 upon the star-w" dte platform. Above, under the misty 
 moon, sliding in. and out of the patches of cloud that 
 eddied below it, 'floated a dozen dark-winged bodies in 
 a constant circHhg course. From here and there in the 
 valley flashes of fire leaped toward them, followed by 
 sharp detonatioi^^. Kismine clapped her hands with 
 pleasure, which, a moment later, turned to dismay as 
 the aeroplanes i'.t some prearranged signal, began to 
 release their bombs and the whole of the valley became 
 a panorama of deep i'everberate sound and lurid Ught. 
 
 Before long the aim of the attackers became concen- 
 trated upon the points where the anti-aircraft guns 
 were situated, and one of them was almost inunediately 
 reduced to a giant cinder to lie smouldering in a park 
 of rose bushes. 
 
 "Kismine," begged John, "you'll be glad when I tell 
 you that this attack came on the eve of my murder. 
 If I hadn't heard that guard shoot off his gun back by 
 the pass I should now be stone dead " 
 
 "I can't hear you !" cried Kismine, intent on the scene 
 before her. "You'll have to talk louder!" 
 
 "I simply said," shouted John, "that we'd better get 
 out before they begin to shell the chiteau!" 
 
 Suddenly the whole portico of the negro quarters 
 cracked asunder, a geyser of flame shot up from imder 
 the colonnades, and great fragments of jagged marble 
 were hurled as far as the borders of the lake. 
 
 "There go fifty thousand dollars' worth of slaves," 
 cried Kismine, "at prewar prices. So few Americans 
 have any respect for property." 
 
 John renewed his efforts to compel her to leave. The 
 
THE DIAMOND AS BIG AS THE RITZ i8i 
 
 aim of the aeroplanes was becoming more precise minute 
 by minute, and only two of the anti-aircraft guns were 
 still retaliating. It was obvious that the garrison, en- 
 circled with fire, could not hold out much longer. 
 
 "Come on!" cried John, pulling Kismine's arm, 
 "we've got to go. Do you realize that those aviators 
 will kill you without question if they find you ? " 
 
 She consented reluctantly. 
 
 "We'll have to wake Jasmine !" she said, as they hur- 
 ried toward the lift. Then she added in a sort of child- 
 ish delight: "We'll be poor, won't we? Like people in 
 books. And I'll be an orphan and utterly free. Free 
 and poor! What fun!" She stopped and raised her 
 lips to him in a delighted kiss. 
 
 "It's impossible to be both together," said John 
 grimly. "People have foxmd that out. And I should 
 choose to be free as preferable of the two. As an extra 
 caution you'd better dump the contents of your jewel 
 box into your pockets." 
 
 Ten minutes later the two girls met John in the dark 
 corridor and they descended to the main floor of the 
 chateau. Passing for the last time through the mag- 
 nificence of the splendid halls, they stood for a moment 
 out on the terrace, watching the burning negro quarters 
 and the flaming embers of two planes which had fallen 
 on the other side of the lake. A solitary gun was still 
 keeping up a sturdy popping, and the attackers seemed 
 timorous about descending lower, but sent their thim- 
 derous fireworks in a circle around it, until any chance 
 shot might annihilate its Ethiopian crew. 
 
 John and the two sisters passed down the marble 
 steps, turned sharply to the left, and began to ascend 
 a narrow path that wound like a garter about the dia- 
 mond mountain. Kismine knew a heavily wooded spot 
 half-way up where they could He concealed and yet be 
 
i82 TALES OF THE JAZZ AGE 
 
 able to observe the wild night in the valley — finally to 
 make an escape, when it should be necessary, along a 
 secret path laid in a rocky gully. 
 
 X 
 
 It was three o'clock when they attained their destina- 
 tion. The obliging and phlegmatic Jasmine fell off to 
 sleep immediately, leaning against the trunk of a large 
 tree, while John and Kismine sat, his arm around her, 
 and watched the desperate ebb and flow of the dying 
 battle among the ruins of a vista that had been a garden 
 spot that morning. Shortly after four o'clock the last 
 remaining gun gave out a clanging sound and went out 
 of action in a swift tongue of red smoke. Though the 
 moon was down, they saw that the flying bodies were 
 circling closer to the earth. When the planes had made 
 certain that the beleaguered possessed no further re- 
 sources, they would land and the dark and glittering 
 reign of the Washingtons would be over. 
 
 With the cessation of the firing the valley grew qidet. 
 The embers of the two aeroplanes glowed like the eyes 
 of some monster crouching in the grass. The chateau 
 stood dark and silent, beautiful without light as it had 
 been beautiful in the sun, while the woody rattles of 
 Nemesis filled the air above with a growing and reced- 
 ing complaint. Then John perceived that Kismine, 
 like her sister, had fallen sound asleep. 
 
 It was long after four when he became aware of foot- 
 steps along the path they had lately followed, and he 
 waited in breathless silence until the persons to whom 
 they belonged had passed the vantage-point he occupied. 
 There was a faint stir in the air now that was not of 
 human origin, and the dew was cold; he knew that the 
 dawn would break soon. John waited until the steps 
 
THE DIAMOND AS BIG AS THE RITZ^.. 185 
 
 had gone a safe distance up the mountain asd were in- 
 audible. Then he followed. AbcAit %t.lf-way to the 
 steep summit the trees fell, away and a hard saddle of 
 rock spread itself over the diamond beneath. Just be- 
 fore he reached this point he slowed down his pace, 
 warned by an animd sense that there was life just ahead 
 of him. Coming to a high boulder, he lifted his head 
 gradually above its edge. His curiosity was rewarded; 
 this is what he saw: 
 
 Braddock Washington was standing there motionless, 
 silhouetted against the gray sky without sound or sign 
 of life. As the dawn came up out of the east, lending a 
 cold green color to the earth, it brought the solitary 
 figure into insignificant contrast with the new day. 
 
 While John watched, his host remained for a few mo- 
 ments absorbed in some inscrutable contemplation; 
 then he signalled to the two negroes who crouched at his 
 feet to lift the burden which lay between them. As 
 they struggled upright, the first yellow beam of the sun 
 struck through the innumerable prisms of an immense 
 and exquisitely chiselled diamond — and a white radiance 
 was kindled that glowed upon the air like a fragment of 
 the morning star. The bearers staggered beneath its 
 weight for a moment — then their rippling muscles caught 
 and hardened under the wet shine of the skins and the 
 three figures were again motionless in their defiant 
 impotency before the heavens. 
 
 After a while the white man lifted his head and slowly 
 raised his arms in a gesture of attention, as one who would 
 call a great crowd to hear — but there was no crowd, only 
 the vast silence of the mountain and the sky, broken by 
 faint bird voices down among the trees. The figure on 
 the saddle of rock began to speak ponderously and with 
 an inextinguishable pride. 
 
 "You out there — " he cried in a trembling voice. 
 
i«4 ^ TALES OF THE JAZZ AGE 
 
 "You — there — !" He paused, his arms still uplifted, 
 his head held c-tte^^ively as though he were expecting 
 an answer. John strained his eyes to see whether 
 there might be men coming dow i J^ mountain, but the 
 mountain was bare of human life. There was only sky 
 and a mocking flute of wind along the tree-tops. Could 
 Washington be praying ? For a moment John wondered. 
 Then the illusion passed — there v/as something in the 
 man's whole attitude antithetical to prayer. 
 
 "Oh, you above there!" 
 
 The voice was become strong and confident. This 
 was no forlorn supplication. If anything, there was in 
 it a quality of monstrous condescf^ision. 
 
 "You there " 1 
 
 Words, too quickly uttered to be understood, flowing 
 one into the other. . . . John listened breathlessly, 
 catching a phrase here and there, while the voice broke 
 off, resumed, broke off again — now strong and argu- 
 mentative, now colored with a slow, puzzled impatience. 
 Then a conviction cormnenced to dawn on the single 
 listener, and as realization crept over him a spray of 
 quick blood rushed through his arteries. Braddock 
 Washington was offering a bribe to God ! 
 
 That was it — there was no doubt. The diamond in 
 the arms of his slaves was some advance sample, a prom- 
 ise of more to follow. 
 
 That, John perceived after a time, was the thread 
 running through his sentences. Promethe us Enriched 
 was calling to witness forgotten sacrifltes^ forgotten 
 rituals, prayers obsolete before the birth of Christ. 
 For a while his discourse took the form of reminding God 
 of this gift or that which Divinity had deigned to accept 
 from men — ^great churches if he would rescue cities from 
 the plague, gifts of myrrh and gold, of human lives and 
 beautiful women and captive armies, of children and 
 
THE DIAMOND AS BIG AS THE RITZ 185 
 
 queens, of beasts of the forest and field, sheep and goats, 
 harvests and cities, whole conquered lands that had been 
 offered up in lust or blood for His appeasal, buying a 
 meed's worth of alleviation from the Divine wrath — 
 and now he, Braddock Washington, Emperor of Dia- 
 monds, king and priest of the age of gold, arbiter of 
 splendor and luxury, would offer up a treasure such as 
 princes before him had never dreamed of, offer it up 
 not in suppliance, but in pride. 
 
 He would give to God, he continued, getting down to 
 specifications, the greatest diamond in the world. This 
 diamond would be cut with many more thousand facets 
 than there were leaves on a tree, and yet the whole dia- 
 mond would be shaped with the perfection of a stone no 
 bigger than a fly. Many men would work upon it for 
 many years. It would be set in a great dome of beaten 
 gold, wonderfully carved and equipped with gates of 
 opal and crusted sapphire. In the middle would be hol- 
 lowed out a chapel presided over by an altar of irides- 
 cent, decomposing, ever-changing radium which would 
 burn out the eyes of any worshipper who lifted up his 
 head from prayer — and on this altar there would be 
 slain for the amusement of the Divine Benefactor any 
 victim He should choose, even though it should be the 
 greatest and most powerful man alive. 
 
 In return he asked only a simple thing, a thing that for 
 God would be absurdly easy — only that matters should 
 be as they were yesterday at this hour and that they 
 should so remain. So very simple ! Let but the heav- 
 ens open, swallowing these men and their aeroplanes — 
 and then close again. Let him have his slaves once 
 more, restored to life and well. 
 
 There was no one else with whom he had ever needed 
 to treat or bargain. 
 
 He doubted only whether he had made his bribe big 
 
i86 TALES OF THE JAZZ AGE 
 
 enough. God had His price, of course. God was made 
 in man's image, so it had been said: He must have His 
 price. And the price would be rare — no cathedral whose 
 building consumed many years, no pyramid constructed 
 by ten thousand workmen, would be like this cathedral, 
 this pyramid. 
 
 He paused here. That was his proposition. Every- 
 thing would be up to specifications and there was noth- 
 ing vulgar in his assertion that it would be cheap at the 
 price. He implied that Providence could take it or 
 leave it. 
 
 ' As he approached the end his sentences became 
 broken, became short and uncertain, and his body 
 seemed tense, seemed strained to catch the slightest 
 pressure or whisper of life in the spaces around him. 
 His hair had turned gradually white as he talked, and 
 now he lifted his head high to the heavens like a prophet 
 of old — ^magnificently mad. 
 
 Then, as John stared in giddy fascination, it seemed 
 to him that a curious phenomenon took place somewhere 
 around him. It was as though the sky had darkened 
 for an instant, as though there had been a sudden mur- 
 mur in a gust of wind, a sound of far-away trumpets, 
 a sighing like the rustle of a great silken robe — for a 
 time the whole of nature round about partook of this 
 darkness; the birds' song ceased; the trees were still, 
 and far over the mountain there was a mutter of dull, 
 menacing thunder. 
 
 That was all. The wind died along the tall grasses of 
 the valley. The dawn and the day resumed their place 
 in a time, and the risen sun sent hot waves of yellow 
 mist that made its path bright before it. The leaves 
 laughed in the sun, and their laughter shook the trees 
 until each bough was like a girl's school in fairyland. 
 God had refused to accept the bribe. 
 
THE DIAMOND AS BIG AS THE RITZ 187 
 
 For another moment John watched the triumph of 
 the day. Then, turning, he saw a flutter of brown down 
 by the lake, then another flutter, then another, like 
 the dance of golden angels alighting from the clouds. 
 The aeroplanes had come to earth. 
 
 John sHd off the boulder and ran down the side of 
 the mountain to the clump of trees, where the two girls 
 were awake and waiting for him. Kismine sprang to 
 her feet, the jewels in her pockets jingling, a question on 
 her parted Ups, but instinct told John that there was no 
 time for words. They must get off the mountain with- 
 out losing a moment. He seized a hand of each, and 
 in silence they threaded the tree-trunks, washed with 
 light now and with the rising mist. Behind them from 
 the valley came no sound at all, except the complaint 
 of the peacocks far away and the pleasant undertone of 
 morning. 
 
 When they had gone about half a mile, they avoided 
 the park land and entered a narrow path that led over 
 the next rise of ground. At the highest point of this 
 they paused and turned around. Their eyes rested 
 upon the mountainside they had just left — oppressed 
 by some dark sense of tragic impend ency. 
 
 Clear against the sky a broken, white-haired man was 
 slowly descending the steep slope, followed by two gi- 
 gantic and emotionless negroes, who carried a burden 
 between them which stiU flashed and glittered in the 
 sun. Half-way down two other figures joined them — 
 John could see that they were Mrs. Washington and 
 her son, upon whose arm she leaned. The aviators had 
 clambered from their machines to the sweeping lawn in 
 front of the chateau, and with rifles in hand were start- 
 ing up the diamond mountain in skirmishing formation. 
 
 But the little group of five which had formed farther 
 up and was engrossing all the watchers' attention had 
 
i88 TALES OF THE JAZZ AGE 
 
 stopped upon a ledge of rock. The negroes stooped 
 and pulled up what appeared to be a trap-door in the 
 side of the mountain. Into this they all disappeared, 
 the white-haired man first, then his wife and son, finally 
 the two negroes, the glittering tips of whose jeweled 
 head-dresses caught the sun for a moment before the 
 trap-door descended and engulfed them all. 
 
 Kismine clutched John's arm. 
 
 "Oh," she cried wildly, "where are they going? 
 What are they going to do ? " 
 
 "It must be some imderground way of escape " 
 
 A little scream from the two girls interrupted his 
 sentence. 
 
 "Don't you see?" sobbed Kismine hysterically. 
 "The mountain is wired !" 
 
 Even as she spoke John put up his hands to shield 
 his sight. Before their eyes the whole surface of the 
 mountain had changed suddenly to a dazzling burning 
 yellow, which showed up through the jacket of turf as 
 light shows through a human hand. For a moment 
 the intolerable glow continued, and then like an extin- 
 guished filament it disappeared, revealing a black waste 
 from which blue smoke arose slowly, carrying off with 
 it what remained of vegetation and of human flesh. Of 
 the aviators there was left neither blood nor bone — they 
 were consumed as completely as the five souls who had 
 gone inside. 
 
 Simultaneously, and with an immense concussion, 
 the chateau literally threw itself into the air, bursting 
 into flaming fragments as it rose, and then tumbling 
 back upon itself in a smoking pile that lay projecting 
 half into the water of the lake. There was no fire — 
 what smoke there was drifted off mingling with the 
 sunshine, and for a few minutes longer a powdery dust 
 of marble drifted from the great featureless pile that 
 
THE DIAMOND AS BIG AS THE RITZ 189 
 
 had once been the house of jewels. There was no more 
 sound and the three people were alone in the valley. 
 
 XI 
 
 At sunset John and his two companions reached the 
 high cliff which had marked the boundaries of the Wash- 
 ingtons' dominion, and looking back found the valley tran- 
 quil and lovely in the dusk. They sat down to finish the 
 food which Jasmine had brought with her in a basket. 
 
 "There!" she said, as she spread the table-cloth and 
 put the sandwiches in a neat pile upon it. "Don't they 
 look tempting ? I always think that food tastes better 
 outdoors." 
 
 "With that remark," remarked Kismine, "Jasmine 
 enters the middle class." 
 
 "Now," said John eagerly, "turn out your pocket and 
 let's see what jewels you brought along. If you made 
 a good selection we three ought to live comfortably all 
 the rest of our hves." 
 
 Obediently Kismine put her hand in her pocket and 
 tossed two handfuls of glittering stones before him. 
 
 "Not so bad," cried John, enthusiastically. "They 
 aren't very big, but — ^Hello ! " His expression changed 
 as he held one of them up to the declining sun. "Why, 
 these aren't diamonds ! There's something the matter !" 
 
 "By goUy!" exclaimed Kismine, with a startled look. 
 "What an idiot lam!" 
 
 "Why, these are rhinestones ! " cried John. 
 
 "I know." She broke into a laugh. "I opened the 
 wrong drawer. They belonged on the dress of a girl 
 who visited Jasmine. I got her to give them to me in 
 exchange for diamonds. I'd never seen anything but 
 precious stones before." 
 
 "And this is what you brought ?" 
 
I90 TALES OF THE JAZZ AGE 
 
 "I'm afraid so." She fingered the brilliants wist- 
 fully. "I think I like these better. I'm a little tired 
 of diamonds." 
 
 "Very well," said John gloomily. "We'll have to 
 live in Hades. And you will grow old telling incredu- 
 lous women that you got the wrong drawer. Un- 
 fortunately your father's bank-books were consumed 
 with him." 
 
 "Well, what's the matter with Hades ?" 
 
 "If I come home with a wife at my age my father is 
 just as liable as not to cut me off with a hot coal, as they 
 say down there." 
 
 Jasmine spoke up. 
 
 "I love washing," she said quietly. "I have always 
 washed my own handkerchiefs. I'll take in laundry 
 and support you both." 
 
 "Do they have washwomen in Hades?" asked Kis- 
 mine innocently. 
 
 " Of course," answered John. "It's just like anywhere 
 else." 
 
 "I thought — ^perhaps it was too hot to wear any 
 clothes." 
 
 John laughed. 
 
 "Just try it!" he suggested. "They'll run you out 
 before you're half started." 
 
 "Will father be there?" she asked. 
 
 John turned to her in astonishment. 
 
 "Your father is dead," he replied somberly. "Why 
 should he go to Hades? You have it confused with 
 another place that was aboUshed long ago." 
 
 After supper they folded up the table-cloth and spread 
 their blankets for the night. 
 
 "What a dream it was," Kismine sighed, gazing up 
 at the stars. "How strange it seems to be here with one 
 dress and a penniless fiance ! 
 
THE DIAMOND AS BIG AS THE RITZ ig 
 
 "Under the stars," she repeated. "I never noticed 
 the stars before. I always thought of them as great big 
 diamonds that belonged to some one. Now they frighten 
 me. They make me feel that it was all a dream, all my 
 youth." 
 
 "It was a dream," said John quietly. "Everybody's 
 youth is a dream, a form of chemical madness." 
 
 "How pleasant then to be insane!" 
 
 "So I'm told," said John gloomily. "I don't know 
 any longer. At any rate, let us love for a while, for a 
 year or so, you and me. That's a form of divine drunk- 
 enness that we can all try. There are only diamonds 
 in the whole world, diamonds and. pefhaps^the shabby 
 gift of disillusioa. ...Well, I have that Ust and I will' 
 make the usual notliing_of it," He shivered. "Turn 
 up your coat collar, little girl, the night's full of chiU 
 liiid you'll get pneumonia. His was a great sin who 
 firstTnvented cofiscidusness.'' Let us lose it for a few 
 hours." 
 
 So wrapping himself in his blanket he fell off to sleep. 
 
THE CURIOUS CASE OF BENJAMIN 
 BUTTON 
 
 As long ago as i860 it was the proper thing to be born 
 at home. At present, so I am told, the high gods of 
 medicine have decreed that the first cries of the young 
 shall be uttered upon the anesthetic air of a hospital, 
 preferably a fashionable one. So young Mr. and Mrs. 
 Roger Button were fifty years ahead of style when they 
 decided, one day in the summer of i860, that their first 
 baby should be born in a hospital. Whether this 
 anachronism had any bearing upon the astonishing 
 history I am about to set down will never be known. 
 
 I shall tell you what occurred, and let you judge for 
 yourself. 
 
 The Roger Buttons held an enviable position, both 
 social and financial, in ante-bellum Baltimore. They 
 were related to the This Family and the That Family, 
 which, as every Southerner knew, entitled them to mem- 
 bership in that enormous peerage which largely popu- 
 lated the Confederacy. This was their first experience 
 with the charming old custom of having babies — Mr. 
 Button was naturally nervous. He hoped it would be 
 a boy so that he could be sent to Yale College in Con- 
 necticut, at which institution Mr. Button himself had 
 been known for four years by the somewhat obvious 
 nickname of "Cuff." 
 
 On the September morning consecrated to the enor- 
 mous event he arose nervously at six o'clock, dressed 
 himself, adjusted an impeccable stock, and hurried forth 
 through the streets of Baltimore to the hospital, to de- 
 
 193 
 
THE CASE OF BENJAMIN BUTTON 193 
 
 termine whether the darkness of the night had borne in 
 new life upon its bosom. 
 
 When he was approximately a hundred yards from 
 the Maryland Private Hospital for Ladies and Gentle- 
 men he saw Doctor Keene, the family physician, de- 
 scending the front steps, rubbing his hands together 
 with a washing movement — as all doctors are required 
 to do by the unwritten ethics of their profession. 
 
 Mr. Roger Button, the president of Roger Button & 
 Co., Wholesale Hardware, began to run toward Doctor 
 Keene with much less dignity than was expected from 
 a Southern gentleman of that picturesque period. 
 "Doctor Keene ! " he called. " Oh, Doctor Keene ! " 
 
 The doctor heard him, faced around, and stood wait- 
 ing, a curious expression settling on his harsh, medicinal 
 face as Mr. Button drew near. 
 
 "What happened?" demanded Mr. Button, as he 
 came up in a gasping rush. "What was it? How is 
 she? A boy? Who is it? What " 
 
 "Talk sense!" said Doctor Keene sharply. He ap- 
 peared somewhat irritated. 
 
 "Is the child born ?" begged Mr. Button. 
 
 Doctor Keene frowned. "Why, yes, I suppose so — 
 after a fashion." Again he threw a curious glance at 
 Mr. Button. 
 
 "Is my wife all right?" 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 "Is it a boy or a girl ?" 
 
 "Here now!" cried Doctor Keene in a perfect pas- 
 sion of irritation, "I'U ask you to go and see for your- 
 self. Outrageous!" He snapped the last word out in 
 almost one syllable, then he turned away muttering: 
 "Do you imagine a case like this wiU help my profes- 
 sional reputation? One more would ruin me — ruin, 
 anybody." 
 
194 TALES OF THE JAZZ AGE 
 
 "What's the matter?" demanded Mr. Button, ap- 
 paUed. "Triplets?" 
 
 "No, not triplets!" answered the doctor cuttingly. 
 "What's more, you can go and see for yourself. And 
 get another doctor. I brought you into the world, young 
 man, and I've been physician to your family for forty 
 years, but I'm through with you ! I don't want to see 
 you or any of your relatives ever again ! Good-by ! " 
 
 Then he turned sharply, and without another word 
 climbed into his phaeton, which was waiting at the curb- 
 stone, and drove severely away. 
 
 Mr. Button stood there upon the sidewalk, stupefied 
 and trembling from head to foot. What horrible mis- 
 hap had occurred ? He had suddenly lost all desire to go 
 into the Maryland Private Hospital for Ladies and Gen- 
 tlemen — it was with the greatest difficulty that, a mo- 
 ment later, he forced himself to mount the steps and 
 enter the front door. 
 
 A nurse was sitting behind a desk in the opaque 
 gloom of the haU. Swallowing his shame, Mr. Button 
 approached her. 
 
 "Good-morning," she remarked, looking up at him 
 pleasantly. 
 
 "Good-morning. I — I am Mr. Button." 
 
 At this a look of utter terror spread itself over the 
 girl's face. She rose to her feet and seemed about to 
 fly from the hall, restraining herself only with the most 
 apparent difficulty. 
 
 "I want to see my child," said Mr. Button. 
 
 The nurse gave a little scream. "Oh — of course!" 
 she cried hysterically. "Up-stairs. Right up-stairs. Go 
 ■—up!" 
 
 She pointed the direction, and Mr. Button, bathed in 
 a cool perspiration, turned falteringly, and began to 
 mount to the second floor. In the upper hall he ad- 
 
THE CASE OF BENJAMIN BUTTON 195 
 
 dressed another nurse who approached him, basin in 
 hand. "I'm Mr. Button," he managed to articulate. 
 "I want to see my " 
 
 Clank! The basin clattered to the floor and rolled 
 in the direction of the stairs. Clank! Clank! It be- 
 gan a methodical descent as if sharing in the general 
 terror which this gentleman provoked. 
 
 "I want to see my child!" Mr. Button almost 
 shrieked. He was on the verge of collapse. 
 
 Clank ! The basin had reached the first floor. The 
 nurse regained control of herself, and threw Mr. Button 
 a look of hearty contempt. 
 
 "All right, Mr. Button," she agreed in a hushed voice. 
 "Very ivell! But if you knew what state it's put us all 
 in this morning ! It's perfectly outrageous ! The hos- 
 pital will never have the ghost of a reputation after " 
 
 "Hurry!" he cried hoarsely. "I can't stand this!" 
 
 "Come this way, then, Mr. Button." 
 
 He dragged himself after her. At the end of a long 
 hall they reached a room from which proceeded a variety 
 of howls — ^indeed, a room which, in later parlance, would 
 have been known as the "crying-room." They entered. 
 Ranged around the walls were half a dozen white- 
 enameled rolling cribs, each with a tag tied at the head. 
 
 "Well," gasped Mr. Button, "which is mine?" 
 
 "There!" said the nurse. 
 
 Mr. Button's eyes followed her pointing finger, and 
 this is what he saw. Wrapped in a voluminous white 
 blanket, and partially crammed into one of the cribs, 
 there sat an old man apparently about seventy years of 
 age. His sparse hair was almost white, and from his 
 chin dripped a long smoke-colored beard, which waved 
 absurdly back and forth, fanned by the breeze coming 
 in at the window. He looked up at Mr. Button with 
 dim, faded eyes in which lurked a puzzled question. 
 
196 TALES OF THE JAZZ AGE 
 
 "Am I mad?" thundered Mr. Button, his terror re- 
 solving into rage. "Is this some ghastly hospital joke ? " 
 
 "It doesn't seem like a joke to us," replied the nurse 
 severely. "And I don't know whether you're mad or 
 not — but that is most certainly your child." 
 
 The cool perspiration redoubled on Mr. Button's 
 forehead. He closed his eyes, and then, opening them, 
 looked again. There was no mistake — ^he was gazing at 
 a man of threescore and ten — a baby of threescore and 
 ten, a baby whose feet hung over the sides of the crib 
 in which it was reposing. 
 
 The old man looked placidly from one to the other 
 for a moment, and then suddenly spoke in a cracked and 
 ancient voice. "Are you my father?" he demanded. 
 
 Mr. Button and the nurse started violently. 
 
 "Because if you are," went on the old man queru- 
 lously, "I wish you'd get me out of this place — or, at 
 least, get them to put a comfortable rocker in here." 
 
 "Where in God's name did you come from ? Who are 
 you ? " burst out Mr. Button frantically. 
 
 " I can't tell you exactly who I am," replied the queru- 
 lous whine, "because I've only been bom a few hours — 
 but my last name is certainly Button." 
 
 "You lie! You're an impostor ! " 
 
 The old man turned wearily to the nurse. "Nice 
 way to welcome a new-born child," he complained in a 
 weak voice. "TeU him he's wrong, why don't you ?" 
 
 "You're wrong, Mr. Button," said the nurse severely. 
 "This is your child, and you'll have to make the best of 
 it. We're going to ask you to take him home with you 
 as soon as possible — some time to-day." 
 
 "Home?" repeated Mr. Button incredulously. 
 
 "Yes, we can't have him here. We really can't, 
 you know?" 
 
 "I'm right glad of it," whined the old man. "This is 
 
THE CASE OF BENJAMIN BUTTON 197 
 
 a fine place to keep a youngster of quiet tastes. With 
 all this yelling and howling, I haven't been able to get a 
 wink of sleep. I asked for something to eat" — here his 
 voice rose to a shrill note of protest — "and they brought 
 me a bottle of milk ! " 
 
 Mr. Button sank down upon a chair near his son and 
 concealed his face in his hands. "My heavens!" he 
 murmured, in an ecstasy of horror. "What will people 
 say ? What must I do ? " 
 
 "You'll have to take him home," insisted the nurse — 
 "immediately!" 
 
 A grotesque picture formed itself with dreadful 
 darity before the eyes of the tortured man — a picture of 
 himself walking through the crowded streets of the city 
 with this appalling apparition stalking by his side. "I 
 can't. I can't," he moaned. 
 
 People would stop to speak to him, and what was he 
 going to say? He would have to introduce this — this 
 septuagenarian: "This is my son, bom early this 
 morning." And then the old man would gather his 
 blanket around him and they would plod on, past the 
 bustling stores, the slave market — for a dark instant 
 Mr. Button wished passionately that his son was black 
 — ^past the luxurious houses of the residential district, 
 past the home for the aged. . . . 
 
 "Come! Pull yourself together," commanded the 
 nurse. 
 
 "See here," the old man announced suddenly, "if 
 you think I'm going to walk home in this blanket, you're 
 entirely mistaken." 
 
 "Babies always have blankets." 
 
 With a malicious crackle the old man held up a small 
 white swaddling garment. "Look!" he quavered. 
 "This is what they had ready for me." 
 
 "Babies always wear those," said the nurse primly. 
 
198 TALES OF THE JAZZ AGE 
 
 "Well," said the old man, "this baby's not going to 
 wear anything in about two minutes. This blanket 
 itches. They might at least have given me a sheet." 
 
 " Keep it on ! Keep it on ! " said Mr. Button hurriedly. 
 He turned to the nurse. "What'U I do ?" 
 
 "Go down town and buy your son some clothes." 
 
 Mr. Button's son's voice followed him down into the 
 hall: "And a cane, father. I want to have a cane." 
 
 Mr. Button banged the outer door savagely. . . . 
 
 II 
 
 "Good-morning," Mr. Button said, nervously, to the 
 clerk in the Chesapeake Dry Goods Company. "I want 
 to buy some clothes for my child." 
 
 "How old is your child, sir?" 
 
 "About six hours," answered Mr. Button, without 
 due consideration. 
 
 "Babies' supply department in the rear." 
 
 "Why, I don't think — I'm not sure that's what I 
 want. It's — he's an unusually large-size child. Ec- 
 ceptionally — ah — ^large." 
 
 "They have the largest child's sizes." 
 
 "Where is the boys' department?" inquired Mr, 
 Button, shifting his ground desperately. He felt that 
 the clerk must surely scent his shameful secret. 
 
 "Right here." 
 
 "Well — " He hesitated. The notion of dressing his 
 son in men's clothes was repugnant to him. If, say, 
 he could only find a very large boy's suit, he might cut 
 off that long and awful beard, dye the white hair brown, 
 and thus manage to conceal the worst, and to retain 
 something of his own self-respect — not to mention his 
 position in Baltimore society. 
 
 But a frantic inspection of the boys' department re- 
 
THE CASE OF BENJAMIN BUTTON 199 
 
 vealed no suits to fit the new-Corn Button. He blamed 
 the store, of course — in such cases it is the thing to blame 
 the store. 
 
 "How old did you say that boy of yours was?" de- 
 manded the clerk curiously. 
 
 "He's— sixteen." 
 
 " Oh, I beg your pardon. I thought you said six hours. 
 You'll find the youths' department in the next aisle." 
 
 Mr. Button turned miserably away. Then he stopped, 
 brightened, and pointed his finger toward a dressed 
 diunmy in the window display. " There ! " he exclaimed. 
 "I'll take that suit, out there on the dummy." 
 
 The clerk stared. "Why," he protested, "that's not 
 a child's suit. At least it is, but it's for fancy dress. 
 You could wear it yourself ! " 
 
 "Wrap it up," insisted his customer nervously. 
 "That's what I want." 
 
 The astonished derk obeyed. 
 
 Back at the hospital Mr. Button entered the nursery 
 and almost threw the package at his son. "Here's your 
 clothes," he snapped out. 
 
 The old man untied the package and viewed the con- 
 tents with a quizzical eye. 
 
 "They look sort of funny to me," he complained. 
 "I don't want to be made a monkey of " 
 
 "You've made a monkey of me!" retorted Mr. But- 
 ton fiercely. "Never you mind how funny you look. 
 Put them on — or I'll — or I'll spank you." He swal- 
 lowed uneasily at the penultimate word, feeling never- 
 theless that it was the proper thing to say. 
 
 "All right, father"— this with a grotesque simula- 
 tion of filial respect — "you've lived longer; you know 
 best. Just as you say." 
 
 As before, the sound of the word "father" caused 
 Mr. Button to start violently. 
 
2CX) TALES OF. THE JAZZ AGE 
 
 "And hurry." \ 
 
 "I'm hurrying, father." 
 
 When his son was dressed Mr. Button regarded him 
 with depression. The costume consisted of dotted socks, 
 pink pants, and a belted blouse with a wide white collar. 
 Over the latter waved the long whitish beard, drooping 
 almost to the waist. The effect was not good. 
 
 "Wait!" 
 
 Mr. Button seized a hospital shears and with three 
 quick snaps amputated a large section of the beard. But 
 even with this improvement the ensemble fell far short 
 of perfection. The remaining brush of scraggly hair, 
 the watery eyes, the ancient teeth, seemed oddly out of 
 tone with the gayety of the costume. Mr. Button, 
 however, was obdurate — he held out his hand. " Come 
 along ! " he said sternly. 
 
 His son took the hand trustingly. "What are you 
 going to caU me, dad ? " he quavered as they walked from 
 the nursery — "just 'baby' for a while ? till you think of 
 a better name ? " 
 
 Mr. Button grunted. "I don't know," he answered 
 harshly. "I think we'll call you Methuselah." 
 
 m 
 
 Even after the new addition to the Button family 
 had had his hair cut short and then dyed to a sparse un- 
 natural black, had had his face shaved so close that it 
 glistened, and had been attired in small-boy clothes made 
 to order by a flabbergasted tailor, it was impossible for 
 Mr. Button to ignore the fact that his son was a poor 
 excuse for a first family baby. Despite his aged stoop, 
 Benjamin Button — for it was by this name they called 
 him instead of by the appropriate but invidious Methuse- 
 lah — was five feet eight inches tall. His clothes did not 
 
THE CASE OF BENJAMIN BUTTON 201 
 
 conceal this, nor did the clipping and dyeing of his 
 eyebrows disguise the fact that the eyes underneath 
 were faded and watery and tired. In fact, the baby- 
 nurse who had been engaged in advance left the house 
 after one look, in a state of considerable indignation. 
 
 But Mr. Button persisted in his unwavering purpose, 
 Benjamin was a baby, and a baby he should remain. 
 At first he declared that if Benjamin didn't hke warm 
 milk he could go without food altogether, but he was 
 finally prevailed upon to allow his son bread and butter, 
 and even oatmeal by way of a compromise. One day 
 he brought home a rattle and, giving it to Benjamin, 
 insisted in no uncertain terms that he should "play 
 with it," whereupon the old man took it with a weary 
 expression and could be heard jingling it obediently at 
 intervals throughout the day. 
 
 There can be no doubt, though, that the rattle bored 
 him, and that he found other and more soothing amuse- 
 ments when he was left alone. For instance, Mr. But- 
 ton discovered one day that during the preceding week 
 he had smoked more cigars than ever before — a phe- 
 nomenon which was explained a few days later when, 
 entering the nursery unexpectedly, he found the room 
 full of faint blue haze and Benjamin, with a guilty ex- 
 pression on his face, trying to conceal the butt of a dark 
 Havana. This, of course, called for a severe spanking, 
 but Mr. Button found that he could not bring himseU 
 to administer it. He merely warned his son that he 
 would "stunt his growth." 
 
 Nevertheless he persisted in his attitude. He brought 
 home lead soldiers, he brought toy trains, he brought 
 large pleasant am'mals made of cotton, and, to perfect 
 the illusion which he was creating — for himself at least — 
 he passionately demanded of the clerk in the toy-store 
 whether "the paint would come off the pink duck if the 
 
202 TALES of: the JAZZ AGE 
 
 baby put it in his mouth." But, despite all his father's 
 efforts, Benjamin refused to be interested. He would 
 steal down the back stairs and return to the nursery 
 with a volume of the "Encyclopaedia Britannica," over 
 which he would pore through an afternoon, while his 
 cotton cows and his Noah's ark were left neglected on 
 the floor. Against such a stubbornness Mr. Button's 
 efforts were of little avail. 
 
 The sensation created in Baltimore was, at first, 
 prodigious. What the mishap would have cost the But- 
 tons and their kinsfolk socially cannot be determined, 
 for the outbreak of the Civil War drew the city's atten- 
 tion to other things. A few people who were unfailingly 
 polite racked their brains for compliments to give to the 
 parents — and finally hit upon the ingenious device of 
 declaring that the baby resembled his grandfather, a 
 fact which, due to the standard state of decay common 
 to all men of seventy, could not be denied. Mr. and 
 Mrs. Roger Button were not pleased, and Benjamin's 
 grandfather was furiously insulted. 
 
 Benjamin, once he left the hospital, took life as he 
 found it. Several small boys were brought to see him, 
 and he spent a stiff-j'ointed afternoon trying to work up 
 an interest in tops and marbles — he even managed, quite 
 accidentally, to break a kitchen window with a stone 
 from a shng shot, a feat which secretly deUghted his 
 father. 
 
 Thereafter Benj'amin contrived to break something 
 every day, but he did these things only because they 
 were expected of him, and because he was by nature 
 obliging. 
 
 When his grandfather's initial antagonism wore off, 
 Benj'amin and that gentleman took enormous pleasure in 
 one another's company. They would sit for hours, these 
 two so far apart in age and experience, and, like old 
 
THE CASE OF BENJAMIN" BUTTON 203 
 
 cronies, discuss with tireless monotony the slow events 
 of the day. Benjamin felt more at ease in his grand- 
 father's presence than in his parents' — they seemed al- 
 ways somewhat in awe of him and, despite the dicta- 
 torial authority they exercised over him, frequently 
 addressed him as "Mr." 
 
 He was as puzzled as any one else at the apparently 
 advanced age of his mind and body at birth. He read 
 up on it in the medical journal, but found that no such 
 case had been previously recorded. At his father's 
 urging he made an honest attempt to play with other 
 boys, and frequently he joined in the milder games — 
 football shook him up too much, and he feared that in 
 case of a fracture his ancient bones would refuse to knit. 
 
 When he was five he was sent to kindergarten, where 
 he was initiated into the art of pasting green paper on 
 orange paper, of weaving colored maps and manufac- 
 turing eternal cardboard necklaces. He was inclined 
 to drowse off to sleep in the middle of these tasks, a habit 
 which both irritated and frightened his yoxmg teacher. 
 To his relief she complained to his parents, and he was 
 removed from the school. The Roger Buttons told 
 their friends that they felt he was too young. 
 
 By the time he was twelve years old his parents had 
 grown used to him. Indeed, so strong is the force of 
 custom that they no longer felt that he was different 
 from any other child — except when some curious anomaly 
 reminded them of the fact. But one day a few weeks 
 after his twelfth birthday, while looking in the mirror, 
 Benjamin made, or thought he made, an astonishing dis- 
 covery. Did his eyes deceive him, or had his hair 
 turned in the dozen years of his life from white to iron- 
 gray under its concealing dye ? Was the network of 
 wrinkles on his face becoming less pronounced ? Was 
 his skin healthier and firmer, with even a touch of ruddy 
 
204 TALES OF THE JAZZ AGE 
 
 winter color ? He could not tell. He knew that he no 
 longer stooped and that his physical condition had im- 
 proved since the early days of his life. 
 
 "Can it be ?" he thought to himself, or, rather, 
 
 scarcely dared to think. 
 
 He went to his father. "1 am grown," he announced 
 determinedly. "I want to put on long trousers." 
 
 His father hesitated. "Well," he said finally, "I 
 don't know. Fourteen is the age for putting on long 
 trousers — ^and you are only twelve." 
 
 "But you'll have to admit," protested Benjamin, 
 "that I'm big for my age." 
 
 His father looked at him with illusory speculation. 
 "Oh, I'm not so sure of that," he said. "I was as big 
 as you when I was twelve." 
 
 This was not true — it was all part of Roger Button's 
 silent agreement with himself to believe in his son's 
 normality. 
 
 Finally a compromise was reached. Benjamin was to 
 continue to dye his hair. He was to make a better 
 attempt to play with boys of his own age. He was not 
 to wear his spectacles or carry a cane in the street. In 
 return for these concessions he was allowed his first 
 suit of long trousers. . . . 
 
 IV 
 
 Of the life of Benjamin Button between his twelfth 
 and twenty-first year I intend to say little. Suffice to 
 record that they were years of normal ungrowth. When 
 Benjamin was eighteen he was erect as a man of fifty; 
 he had more hair and it was of a dark gray; his step 
 was firm, his voice had lost its cracked quaver and des- 
 cended to a healthy baritone. So his father sent him up 
 to Connecticut to take examinations for entrance to 
 
THE CASE OF BENJAMIN BUTTON 205 
 
 Yale College. Benjamin passed his examination and be- 
 came a member of thb freshman class. 
 
 On the third day following his matriculation he re- 
 ceived a notification from Mr. Hart, the college regis- 
 trar, to call at his office and arrange his schedule. Ben- 
 jamin, glancing in the mirror, decided that his hair needed 
 a new application of its brown dye, but an anxious in- 
 spection of his bureau drawer disclosed that the dye 
 bottle was not there. Then he remembered — ^he had 
 emptied it the day before and thrown it away. 
 
 He was in a dilemma. He was due at the registrar's 
 in five minutes. There seemed to be no help for it — ^he 
 must go as he was. He did. 
 
 " Good-morning," said the registrar politely. "You've 
 come to inquire about your son." 
 
 "Why, as a matter of fact, my name's Button — " be- 
 gan Benjamin, but Mr. Hart^cut him off. 
 
 "I'm very glad to meet you, Mr. Button. I'm ex- 
 pecting your son here any minute." 
 
 "That's me ! " burst out Benjamin. " I'm a freshman." 
 
 "What!" 
 
 "I'm a freshman." 
 
 " Surely you're joking." 
 
 "Not at all." 
 
 The registrar frowned and glanced at a card before 
 him. "Why, I have Mr. Benjamin Button's age down 
 here as eighteen." 
 
 "That's my age," asserted Benjamin, flushing slightly. 
 
 The registrar eyed him wearily. "Now surely, Mr. 
 Button, you don't expect me to believe that." 
 
 Benjamin smiled wearily. "I am eighteen," he re- 
 peated. 
 
 The registrar pointed sternly to the door. " Get out," 
 he said. " Get out of college and get out of town. You 
 are a dangerous lunatic." 
 
2o6 TALES OF THE JAZZ AGE 
 
 "I am eighteen." 
 
 Mr. Hart opened the door. "The idea!" he shouted. 
 "A man of your age trying to enter here as a freshman. 
 Eighteen years old, are you ? Well, I'll give you eigh- 
 teen minutes to get out of town." 
 
 Benjamin Button walked with dignity from the room, 
 and half a dozen undergraduates, who were waiting in 
 the hall, followed him curiously with their eyes. When 
 he had gone a little way he turned around, faced the in- 
 furiated registrar, who was still standing in the doorway, 
 and repeated in a firm voice: "I am eighteen years old." 
 
 To a chorus of titters which went up from the group of 
 undergraduates, Benjamin walked away. 
 
 But he was not fated to escape so easily. On his 
 melancholy walk to the railroad station he found that 
 he was being followed by a group, then by a swarm, 
 and finally by a dense mass of undergraduates. The 
 word had gone around that a lunatic had passed the en- 
 trance examinations for Yale and attempted to palm 
 himself ofiF as a youth of eighteen. A fever of excite- 
 ment permeated the college. Men ran hatless out of 
 classes, the football team abandoned its practice and 
 joined the mob, professors' wives with bonnets awry 
 and bustles out of position, ran shouting after the pro- 
 cession, from which proceeded a continual succession of 
 remarks aimed at the tender sensibilities of Benjamin 
 Button. 
 
 "He must be the Wandering Jew !" 
 
 "He ought to go to prep school at his age !" 
 
 "Look at the infant prodigy!" 
 
 "He thought this was the old men's home." 
 
 "Go up to Harvard!" 
 
 Benjamin increased his gait, and soon he was runnin;^. 
 He would show them 1 He would go to Harvard, and 
 then they would regret these ill-considered taunts I 
 
THE CASE OF BENJAMIN BUTTON 207 
 
 Safely on board the train for Baltimore, he put his 
 head from the wiadow. "You'll regret this!" he 
 shouted. 
 
 "Ha-ha!" the imdergraduates laughed. "Ha-ha- 
 ha ! " It was the biggest mistake that Yale College had 
 ever made. . . . 
 
 In 1880 Benjamin Button was twenty years old, and 
 he signalized his birthday by going to work for his father 
 in Roger Button & Co., Wholesale Hardware. It was 
 in that same year that he began "going out socially" — 
 that is, his father insisted on taking him to several 
 fashionable dances. Roger Button was now fifty, and 
 he and his son were more and more companionable — ^in 
 fact, since Benjamin had ceased to dye his hair (which 
 was still grayish) they appeared about the same age, 
 and could have passed for brothers. 
 
 One night in August they got into the phaeton attired 
 in their fuU-dress suits and drove out to a dance at the 
 Shevlins' country house, situated just outside of Balti- 
 more. It was a gorgeous evening. A full moon drenched 
 the road to the lustreless color of platinum, and late- 
 blooming harvest flowers breathed into the motionless 
 air aromas that were like low, half-heard laughter. The 
 open country, carpeted for rods around with bright 
 wheat, was translucent as in the day. It was almost 
 impossible not to be affected by the sheer beauty of 
 the sky — almost. 
 
 "There's a great future in the dry-goods business," 
 Roger Button was saying. He was not a spiritual 
 man — his esthetic sense was rudimentary. 
 
 "Old fellows like me can't learn new tricks," he ob- 
 served profoundly. "It's you youngsters with energy 
 and vitality that have the great future before you." 
 
2o8 TALES OF THE JAZZ AGE 
 
 Far up the road the lights of the Shevlins' country 
 house drifted into view, and presently there was a sigh- 
 ing sound that crept persistently toward them — it 
 might have been the fine plaint of violins or the rustle 
 of the silver wheat under the moon. 
 
 They pulled up behind a handsome brougham whose 
 passengers were disembarking at the door. A lady got 
 out, then an elderly gentleman, then another yoimg 
 lady, beautiful as sin. Benjamin started; an almost 
 chemical change seemed to dissolve and recompose the 
 very elements of his body. A rigor passed over him, 
 blood rose into his cheeks, his forehead, and there was a 
 steady thumping in his ears. It was first love. 
 
 The girl was slender and frail, with hair that was ashen 
 under the moon and honey-colored under the sputtering 
 gas-lamps of the porch. Over her shoulders was thrown 
 a Spanish mantilla of softest yellow, butterflied in black; 
 her feet were glittering buttons at the hem of her bustled 
 dress. 
 
 Roger Button leaned over to his son. "That," he 
 said, "is young Hildegarde Moncrief, the daughter of 
 General Moncrief." 
 
 Benjamin nodded coldly. "Pretty little thing," he 
 said indifferently. But when the negro boy had led 
 the buggy away, he added: "Dad, you might introduce 
 me to her." 
 
 They approached a group of which Miss Moncrief 
 was the centre. Reared in the old tradition, she courte- 
 sied low before Benjamin. Yes, he might have a dance. 
 He thanked her and walked away — staggered away. 
 
 The interval untU the time for his turn should arrive 
 dragged itself out interminably. He stood close to the 
 wall, silent, inscrutable, watching with murderous eyes 
 the young bloods of Baltimore as they eddied around 
 Hildegarde Moncrief, passionate admiration in their 
 
THE CASE OF BENJAMIN BUTTON 209 
 
 faces. How obnoxious they seemed to Benjamin; how 
 intolerably rosy ! Their curling brown whiskers aroused 
 in him a feeling equivalent to indigestion. 
 
 But when his own time came, and he drifted with her 
 out upon the changing floor to the music of the latest 
 w£dtz from Paris, his jealousies and anxieties melted 
 from him like a mantle of snow. Blind with enchant- 
 ment, he felt that life was just beginning. 
 
 "You and your brother got here just as we did, didn't 
 you ? " asked Hildegarde, looking up at him with eyes 
 that were like bright blue enamel. 
 
 Benjamin hesitated. If she took him for his father's 
 brother, would it be best to enlighten her ? He remem- 
 bered his experience at Yale, so he decided against it. 
 It would be rude to contradict a lady; it would be crimi- 
 nal to mar this exquisite occasion with the grotesque 
 story of his origin. Later, perhaps. So he nodded, 
 smiled, listened, was happy. 
 
 "I like men of your age," Hildegarde told him. 
 "Young boys are so idiotic. They tell me how much 
 champagne they drink at college, and how much money 
 they lose playing cards. Men of your age know how to 
 appreciate women." 
 
 Benjamin felt himself on the verge of a proposal — 
 with an effort he choked back the impulse. 
 
 "You're just the romantic age," she continued — 
 "fifty. Twenty-five is too worldly-wise; thirty is apt to 
 be pale from overwork; forty is the age of long stories 
 that take a whole cigar to teU; sixty is — oh, sixty is too 
 near seventy; but fifty is the mellow age. I love fifty." 
 
 Fifty seemed to Benjamin a glorious age. He longed 
 passionately to be fifty. 
 
 "I've always said," went on Hildegarde, "that I'd 
 rather marry a man of fifty and be taken care of than 
 marry a man of thirty and take care of him." 
 
2IO TALES OF THE JAZZ AGE 
 
 For Benjamin the rest of the evening was bathed in a 
 honey-colored mist. Hildegarde gave him two more 
 dances, and they discovered that they were marvellously 
 in accord on all the questions of the day. She was to 
 go driving with him on the following Sunday, and then 
 they would discuss all these questions further. 
 
 Going home in the phaeton just before the crack of 
 dawn, when the first bees were humming and the fading 
 moon glimmered in the cool dew, Benjamin knew vaguely 
 that his father was discussing wholesale hardware. 
 
 ". . . . And what do you think should merit our 
 biggest attention after hammers and nails ? " the elder 
 Button was saying. 
 
 "Love," replied Benjamin absent-mindedly. 
 
 "Lugs?" exclaimed Roger Button. "Why, I've just 
 covered the question of lugs." 
 
 Benjamin regarded him with dazed eyes just as the 
 eastern sky was suddenly cracked with light, and an 
 oriole yawned piercingly in the quickening trees. . . . 
 
 VI 
 
 When, six months later, the engagement of Miss 
 Hildegarde Moncrief to Mr. Benjamin Button was made 
 known (I say "made known," for General Moncrief de- 
 clared he would rather fall upon his sword than aimoimce 
 it), the excitement in Baltimore society reached a fever- 
 ish pitch. The almost forgotten story of Benjamin's 
 birth was remembered and sent out upon the winds of 
 scandal in picaresque and incredible forms. It was said 
 that Benjamin was really the father of Roger Button, 
 that he was his brother who had been in prison for forty 
 years, that he was John Wilkes Booth in disguise — and, 
 finally, that he had two small conical horns sprouting 
 from his head. 
 
THE CASE OF BENJAMIN BUTTON 211 
 
 The Sunday supplements of the New York papers 
 played up the case with fascinating sketches which 
 showed the head of Benjamin Button attached to a fish, 
 to a snake, and, finally, to a body of solid brass. He be- 
 came known, journalistically, as the Mystery Man of 
 Maryland. But the true story, as is usually the case, 
 had a very small circulation. 
 
 However, every one agreed with General Moncrief 
 that it was "criminal" for a lovely girl who could have 
 married any beau in Baltimore to throw herself into the 
 arms of a man who was assuredly fifty. In vain Mr. 
 Roger Button published his son's birth certificate in 
 large type in the Baltimore Blaze. No one believed it. 
 You had only to look at Benjamin and see. 
 
 On the part of the two people most concerned there 
 was no wavering. So many of the stories about her 
 fiance were false that Hildegarde refused stubbornly to 
 believe even the true one. In vain General Moncrief 
 pointed out to her the high mortality among men of 
 fifty — or, at least, among men who looked fifty; in vain 
 he told her of the instability of the wholesale hardware 
 business. Hildegarde had chosen to marry for mellow- 
 ness — and marry she did. . . . 
 
 vn 
 
 In one particular, at least, the friends of Hildegarde 
 Moncrief were mistaken. The wholesale hardware busi- 
 ness prospered amazingly. In the fifteen years between 
 Benjamin Button's marriage in 1880 and his father's re- 
 tirement in 1895, the family fortune was doubled — and 
 this was due largely to the younger member of the firm. 
 
 Needless to say, Baltimore eventually received the 
 couple to its bosom. Even old General Moncrief be- 
 came reconciled to his son-in-law when Benjamin gave 
 
212 TALES OF THE JAZZ AGE 
 
 him the money to bring out his "History of the Civil 
 War" in twenty volumes, which had been refused by» 
 nine prominent publishers. 
 
 In Benjamin himself fifteen years had wrought many 
 changes. It seemed to him that the blood flowed with 
 new vigor through his veins. It began to be a pleasure 
 to rise in the morning, to walk with an active step along 
 the busy, sunny street, to work untiringly with his ship- 
 ments of hammers and his cargoes of nails. It was in 
 1890 that he executed his famous business coup: he 
 brought up the suggestion that all nails used in nailing 
 up the boxes in which nails are shipped are the property of 
 the shippee, a proposal which became a statute, was ap- 
 proved by Chief Justice Fossile, and saved Roger Button 
 and Company, Wholesale Hardware, more than six hun- 
 dred nails every year. 
 
 In addition, Benjamin discovered that he was becom- 
 ing more and more attracted by the gay side of life. It 
 was typical of his growing enthusiasm for pleasure that 
 he was the first man in the city of Baltimore to own and 
 run an automobile. Meeting him on the street, his con- 
 temporaries would stare enviously at the picture he made 
 of health and vitality. 
 
 "He seems to grow younger every year," they would 
 remark. And if old Roger Button, now sixty-five years 
 old, had failed at first to give a proper welcome to his 
 son he atoned at last by bestowing on him what 
 amounted to adulation. 
 
 And here we come to an unpleasant subject which it 
 will be well to pass over as quickly as possible. There 
 was only one thing that worried Benjamin Button: his 
 wife had ceased to attract him. 
 
 At that time Hildegarde was a woman of thirty-five, 
 with a son, Roscoe, fourteen years old. In the early 
 days of their marriage Benjamin had worshipped her. 
 
THE CASE OF BENJAMIN BUTTON 213 
 
 But, as the years passed, her honey-colored hair became 
 an unexciting brown, the blue enamel of her eyes assumed 
 the aspect of cheap crockery — moreover, and most of 
 all, she had become too settled in her ways, too placid, 
 too content, too anemic in her excitements, and too 
 sober in her taste. As a bride it had been she who had 
 "dragged" Benjamin to dances and dinners — now con- 
 ditions were reversed. She went out socially with him, 
 but without enthusiasm, devoured already by that 
 eternal inertia which comes to live with each of us one 
 day and stays with us to the end. 
 
 Benjamin's discontent waxed stronger. At the out- 
 break of the Spanish-American War in 1898 his home had 
 for him so little charm that he decided to join the army. 
 With his business influence he obtained a commission as 
 captain, and proved so adaptable to the work that he 
 was made a major, and finally a Heutenant-colonel just 
 in time to participate in the celebrated charge up San 
 Juan Hill. He was slightly wounded, and received a 
 medal. 
 
 Benjamin had become so attached to the activity and 
 excitement of army life that he regretted to give it up, 
 but his business required attention, so he resigned his 
 commission and came home. He was met at the station 
 by a brass band and escorted to his house. 
 
 vm 
 
 Hildegarde, waving a large silk flag, greeted him on 
 the porch, and even as he kissed her he felt with a sink- 
 ing of the heart that these three years had taken their 
 toU. She was a woman of forty now, with a faint 
 skirmish line of gray hairs in her head. The sight de- 
 pressed him. 
 
 Up in his room he saw his reflection in the familiar 
 
214 TALES OF THE JAZZ AGE 
 
 mirror — he went closer and examined his own face 
 with anxiety, comparing it after a moment with a photo- 
 graph of himself in uniform taken just before the war. 
 
 "Good Lord!" he said aloud. The process was con- 
 tinuing. There was no doubt of it — he looked now like 
 a man of thirty. Instead of being delighted, he was tm- 
 easy — he was growing younger. He had hitherto hoped 
 that once he reached a bodily age equivalent to his age 
 in years, the grotesque phenomenon which had marked 
 his birth would cease to function. He shuddered. His 
 destiny seemed to him awful, incredible. 
 
 When he came down-stairs Hildegarde was waiting 
 for him. She appeared annoyed, and he wondered if 
 she had at last discovered that there was something 
 amiss. It was with an effort to relieve the tension be- 
 tween them that he broached the matter at dinner in 
 what he considered a delicate way, 
 
 "Well," he remarked lightly, "everybody says I 
 look younger than ever." 
 
 Hildegarde regarded him with scorn. She sniffed. 
 "Do you think it's anything to boast about ?" 
 
 "I'm not boasting," he asserted uncomfortably. 
 
 She sniffed again. "The idea," she said, and after a 
 moment: "I should think you'd have enough pride to 
 stop it." 
 
 "How can I ?" he demanded. 
 
 "I'm not going to argue with you," she retorted. 
 "But there's a right way of doing things and a wrong 
 way. If you've made up your mind to be different 
 from everybody else, I don't suppose I can stop you, 
 but I really don't think it's very considerate." 
 
 "But, Hildegarde, I can't help it." 
 
 "You can too. You're simply stubborn. You think 
 you don't want to be like any one else. You always have 
 been that way, and you always will be. But Just think 
 
THE CASE OF BENJAMIN BUTTON 215 
 
 how it would be if every one else looked at things as 
 you do — what would the world be like ? " 
 
 As this was an inane and unanswerable argument 
 Benjamin made no reply, and from that time on a chasm 
 began to widen between them. He wondered what pos- 
 sible fascination she had ever exercised over him. 
 
 To add to the breach, he found, as the new century 
 gathered headway, that his thirst for gayety grew 
 stronger. Never a party of any kind in the city of 
 Baltimore but he was there, dancing with the prettiest 
 of the young married women, chatting with the most 
 popular of the debutantes, and finding their company 
 charming, while his wife, a dowager of evil omen, sat 
 among the chaperons, now in haughty disapproval, and 
 now following him with solemn, puzzled, and reproach- 
 ful eyes. 
 
 "Look!" people would remark. "What a pity! A 
 young fellow that age tied to a woman of forty-five. He 
 must be twenty years younger than his wife." They had 
 forgotten — as people inevitably forget — that back in 
 1880 their mammas and papas had also remarked about 
 this same ill-matched pair. 
 
 Benjamin's growing unhappiness at home was com- 
 pensated for by his many new interests. He took up 
 golf and made a great success of it. He went in for 
 dancing: in 1906 he was an expert at "The Boston," and 
 in 1908 he was considered proficient at the "Maxixe," 
 while in 1909 his "Castle Walk" was the envy of every 
 young man in town. 
 
 His social activities, of course, interfered to some ex- 
 tent with his business, but then he had worked hard at 
 wholesale hardware for twenty-five years and felt that 
 he could soon hand it on to his son, Roscoe, who had 
 recently graduated from Harvard. 
 
 He and his son were, in fact, often mistaken for each 
 
2i6 TALES OF THE JAZZ AGE 
 
 other. This pleased Benjamin — he soon forgot the in- 
 sidious fear which had come over him on his return 
 from the Spanish-American War, and grew to take a 
 naive pleasure in his appearance. There was only one 
 fly in the delicious ointment — ^he hated to appear in 
 public with his wife. Hildegarde was almost fifty, 
 and the sight of her made him feel absurd. . . . 
 
 rx 
 
 One September day in 1910 — a few years after Roger 
 Button & Co., Wholesale Hardware, had been handed 
 over to young Roscoe Button — a man, apparently about 
 twenty years old, entered himself as a freshman at 
 Harvard University in Cambridge. He did not make 
 the mistake of announcing that he would never see 
 fifty again nor did he mention the fact that his son had 
 been graduated from the same institution ten years be- 
 fore. 
 
 He was admitted, and almost immediately attained a 
 prominent position in the class, partly because he seemed 
 a little older than the other freshmen, whose average 
 age was about eighteen. 
 
 But his success was largely due to the fact that in the 
 football game with Yale he played so brilliantly, with so 
 much dash and with such a cold, remorseless anger that 
 he scored seven touchdowns and fourteen field goals for 
 Harvard, and caused one entire eleven of Yale men to 
 be carried singly from the field, unconscious. He was 
 the most celebrated man in college. 
 
 Strange to say, in his third or junior year he was 
 scarcely able to "make" the team. The coaches said 
 that he had lost weight, and it seemed to the more ob- 
 servant among them that he was not quite as tall as 
 before. He made no touchdowns — indeed, he was re- 
 
THE CASE OF BENJAMIN BUTTON 217 
 
 tained on the team chiefly in hope that his enonnous 
 reputation would bring terror and disorganization to 
 the Yale team. 
 
 In his senior year he did not make the team at all. He 
 had grown so slight and frail that one day he was taken 
 by some sophomores for a freshman, an incident which 
 humiliated him terribly. He became known as some- 
 thing of a prodigy — a senior who was surely no more 
 than sixteen — and he was often shocked at the worldli- 
 ness of some of his classmates. His studies seemed 
 harder to him — ^he felt that they were too advanced. He 
 had heard his classmates speak of St. Midas', the famous 
 preparatory school, at which so many of them had pre- 
 pared for college, and he determined after his gradua- 
 tion to enter himself at St. Midas', where the sheltered 
 life among boys his own size would be more congenial 
 to him. 
 
 Upon his graduation in 1914 he went home to Balti- 
 more with his Harvard diploma in his pocket. Hilde- 
 garde was now residing in Italy, so Benjamin went to 
 live with his son, Roscoe. But though he was welcomed 
 in a general way, there was obviously no heartiness in 
 Roscoe's feeling toward him — there was even percepti- 
 ble a tendency on his son's part to think that Benjamin, 
 as he moped about the house in adolescent mooniness, 
 was somewhat in the way. Roscie was married now and 
 prominent in Baltimore life, and he wanted no scandal 
 to creep out in connection with his family. 
 
 Benjamin, no longer persona grata with the debu- 
 tantes and yoimger college set, found himself left much 
 alone, except for the companionship of three or four 
 fifteen-year-old boys in the neighborhood. His idea of 
 going to St. Midas' school recurred to him. 
 
 "Say," he said to Roscoe one day, "I've told you over 
 and over that I want to go to prep school." 
 
2i8 TALES OF THE JAZZ AGE 
 
 "Well, go, then," replied Roscoe shortly. The mat- 
 ter was distastefiil to him, and he wished to avoid a 
 discussion. 
 
 "I can't go alone," said Benjamin helplessly. "You'll 
 have to enter me and take me up there." 
 
 "I haven't got time," declared Roscoe abruptly. His 
 eyes narrowed and he looked uneasily at his father. 
 "As a matter of fact," he added, "you'd better not go 
 on with this business much longer. You better pull up 
 short. You better — you better" — he paused and his 
 face crimsoned as he sought for words — "you better 
 turn right around and start back the other way. This 
 has gone too far to be a joke. It isn't funny any longer. 
 You — you behave yourself ! " 
 
 Benjamin looked at him, on the verge of tears. 
 
 "And another thing," continued Roscoe, "when visi- 
 tors are in the house I want you to call me 'Uncle' — ^not 
 'Roscoe,' but 'Uncle,' do you understand? It looks 
 absurd for a boy of fifteen to call me by my first name. 
 Perhaps you'd better call me 'Uncle' all the time, so 
 you'll get used to it." 
 
 With a harsh look at his father,' Roscoe turned 
 away. . • . 
 
 X 
 
 At the termination of this interview, Benjamin wan- 
 dered dismally up-stairs and stared at himself in the 
 mirror. He had not shaved for three months, but he 
 could find nothing on his face but a faint white down 
 with which it seemed unnecessary to meddle. When he 
 had first come home from Harvard, Roscoe had ap- 
 proached him with the proposition that he should wear 
 eye-glasses and imitation whiskers glued to his cheeks, 
 and it had seemed for a moment that the farce of his 
 early years was to be repeated. But whiskers had 
 
THE CASE OF BENJAMIN BUTTON 219 
 
 itched and made him ashamed. He wept and Roscoe 
 had reluctantly relented. 
 
 Benjamin opened a book of boys' stories, "The Boy 
 Scouts in Bimini Bay," and began to read. But he 
 found himself thinking persistently about the war. 
 America had joined the Allied cause during the preced- 
 ing month, and Benjamin wanted to enlist, but, alas, 
 sixteen was the minimum age, and he did not look that 
 old. His true age, which was fifty-seven, would have 
 disqualified him, smyway. 
 
 There was a knock at his door, and the butler ap- 
 peared with a letter bearing a large ofiicial legend ia 
 the corner and addressed to Mr. Benjamin Button. 
 Benjamin tore it open eagerly, and read the enclosure 
 with delight. It informed him that many reserve officers 
 who had served in the Spanish-American War were 
 being called back into service with a higher rank, and it 
 enclosed his commission as brigadier-general in the United 
 States army with orders to report immediately. 
 
 Benjamin jumped to his feet fairly quivering with 
 enthusiasm. This was what he had wanted. He seized 
 his cap and ten minutes later he had entered a large 
 tailoring establishment on Charles Street, and asked in 
 his uncertain treble to be measured for a uniform. 
 
 "Want to play soldier, sonny?" demanded a clerk, 
 casually. 
 
 Benjamin flushed. "Say! Never mind what I 
 want!" he retorted angrily. "My name's Button and 
 I live on Mt. Vernon Place, so you know I'm good for 
 it." 
 
 "Well," admitted the clerk, hesitantly, "if you're 
 not, I guess your daddy is, all right." 
 
 Benjamin was measured, and a week later his uniform 
 was completed. He had difl5.culty in obtaining the 
 proper general's insignia because the dealer kept in- 
 
220 TALES OF THE JAZZ AGE 
 
 sisting to Benjamin that a nice Y. W. C. A. badge 
 woiild look just as well and be much more fun to play 
 with. 
 
 Saying nothing to Roscoe, he left the house one night 
 and proceeded by train to Camp Mosby, in South Caro- 
 lina, where he was to command an infantry brigade. 
 On a sultry April day he approached the entrance to 
 the camp, paid off the taxicab which had brought him 
 from the station, and turned to the sentry on guard. 
 
 " Get some one to handle my luggage ! " he said briskly. 
 
 The sentry eyed him reproachfully. "Say," he re- 
 marked, "where you goin' with the general's duds, 
 sonny?" 
 
 Benjamin, veteran of the Spanish-American War, 
 whirled upon him with fire in his eye, but with, alas, 
 a changing treble voice. 
 
 "Come to attention !" he tried to thimder; he paused 
 for breath — then suddenly he saw the sentry snap his 
 heels together and bring his rifle to the present. Ben- 
 jamia concealed a smile of gratification, but when he 
 glanced around his smile faded. It was not he who had 
 inspired obedience, but an imposing artillery colonel who 
 was approaching on horseback. 
 
 " Colonel ! " called Benjamin shrilly. 
 
 The colonel came up, drew rein, and looked coolly 
 down at him with a twinkle in his eyes. "Whose little 
 boy are you ?" he demanded kindly. 
 
 "I'll soon dam well show you whose little boy I 
 am!" retorted Benjamin in a ferocious voice. "Get 
 down off that horse !" 
 
 The colonel roared with ^aughter. 
 
 "You want him, eh, general?" 
 
 "Here!" cried Benjamin desperately. "Read this." 
 And he thrust his commission toward the colonel. 
 
 The colonel read it, his eyes popping from their sockets. 
 
THE CASE OF BENJAMIN BUTTON 221 
 
 "Where'd you get this?" he demanded, slipping the 
 document into his own pocket. 
 
 "I got it from the Government, as you'll soon find 
 out!" 
 
 "You come along with me," said the colonel with a 
 peculiar look. "We'll go up to headquarters and talk 
 this over. Come along." 
 
 The colonel turned and began walking his horse in 
 the direction of headquarters. There was nothing for 
 Benjamia to do but follow with as much dignity as pos- 
 sible — meanwhile promising himself a stem revenge. 
 
 But this revenge did not materialize. Two days 
 later, however, his son Roscoe materialized from Balti- 
 more, hot and cross from a hasty trip, and escorted the 
 weeping general, sans uniform, back to his home. 
 
 XI 
 
 In 1920 Roscoe Button's first child was born. Dur- 
 ing the attendant festivities, however, no one thought 
 it "the thing" to mention that the little grubby boy, 
 apparently about ten years of age who played around 
 the house with lead soldiers and a miniature circus, was 
 the new baby's own grandfather. 
 
 No one disliked the little boy whose fresh, cheerful 
 face was crossed with Just a hint of sadness, but to Roscoe 
 Button his presence was a source of torment. In the 
 idiom of his generation Roscoe did not consider the 
 matter "efl&cient." It seemed to him that his father, 
 in refusing to look sixty, had not behaved like a "red- 
 blooded he-man" — this was Roscoe's favorite expres- 
 sion — ^but in a curious and perverse manner. Indeed, 
 to think about the matter for as much as a half an hour 
 drove him to the edge of insanity. Roscoe believed that 
 "live wires" should keep young, but carrying it out on 
 
222 TALES OF THE JAZZ AGE 
 
 such a scale was — was — was inefficient. And there 
 Roscoe rested. 
 
 Five years later Roscoe's little boy had grown old 
 enough to play childish games with little Benjamin 
 under the supervision of the same nurse. Roscoe took 
 them both to kindergarten on the same day and Ben- 
 jamin found that playing with little strips of colored 
 paper, making mats and chains and curious and beauti- 
 ful designs, was the most fascinating game in the world. 
 Once he was bad and had to stand in the comer — then 
 he cried — but for the most part there were gay hours in 
 the cheerful room, with the sunlight coming in the win- 
 dows and Miss Bailey's kind hand resting for a mo- 
 ment now and then in his tousled hair. 
 
 Roscoe's son moved up into the first grade after a 
 year, but Benjamin stayed on in the kindergarten. He 
 was very happy. Sometimes when other tots talked 
 about what they would do when they grew up a shadow 
 would cross his little face as if in a dim, childish way he 
 realized that those were things in which he was never to 
 share. 
 
 The days flowed on in monotonous content. He went 
 back a third year to the kindergarten, but he was too 
 little now to understand what the bright shining strips 
 of paper were for. He cried because the other boys 
 were bigger than he and he was afraid of them. The 
 teacher talked to him, but though he tried to understand 
 he could not understand at all. 
 
 He was taken from the kindergarten. His nurse, 
 Nana, in her starched gingham dress, became the centre 
 of his tiny world. On bright days they walked in the 
 park; Nana would point at a great gray monster and 
 say "elephant," and Benjamin would say it after her, 
 and when he was being undressed for bed that night he 
 would say it over and over aloud to her: "Elyphant, 
 
THE CASE OF BENJAMIN BUTTON 223 
 
 elyphant, elyphant." Sometimes Nana let him jump 
 on the bed, which was fun, because if you sat down ex- 
 actly right it would bounce you up on your feet again, 
 and if you said "Ah" for a long time while you jumped 
 you got a very pleasing broken vocal effect. 
 
 He loved to take a big cane from the hatrack and go 
 around hitting chairs and tables with it and saying: 
 "Fight, fight, fight." When there were people there 
 the old ladies would cluck at him, which interested him, 
 and the young ladies would try to kiss him, whiqh he 
 submitted to with mild boredom. And when the long 
 day was done at five o'clock he would go up-stairs with 
 Nana and be fed oatmeal and nice soft mushy foods with 
 a spoon. 
 
 There were no troublesome memories in his childish 
 sleep; no token came to him of his brave days at col- 
 lege, of the glittering years when he flustered the hearts 
 of many girls. There were only the white, safe walls 
 of his crib and Nana and a man who came to see him 
 sometimes, and a great big orange ball that Nana pointed 
 at just before his twilight bed hour and called "sun." 
 When the sun went his eyes were sleepy^there were no 
 dreams, no dreams to haunt him. 
 
 The past — the wild charge at the head of his men up 
 San Juan Hill; the first years of his marriage when he 
 worked late into the summer dusk down in the busy 
 city for young Hildegarde whom he loved; the days be- 
 fore that when he sat smoking far into the night in the 
 gloomy old Button house on Monroe Street with his 
 grandfather — all these had faded like unsubstantial 
 dreams from his mind as though they had never been. 
 
 He did not remember. He did not remember clearly 
 whether the milk was warm or cool at his last feeding or 
 how the days passed — there was only his crib and Nana's 
 familiar presence. And then he remembered nothing. 
 
224 TALES OF THE JAZZ AGE 
 
 When he was hungry he cried — that was all. Through 
 the noons and nights he breathed and over him there 
 were soft mumblings and murmurings that he scarcely 
 heard, and faintly differentiated smells, and light and 
 darkness. 
 
 Then it was all dark, and his white crib and the dim 
 faces that moved above him, and the warm sweet aroma 
 of the milk, faded out altogether from his mind. 
 
TARQUDSr OF CHEAPSIDE 
 
 Running footsteps — flight, soft-soled shoes made of 
 curious leathery cloth brought from Ceylon setting the 
 pace; thick flowing boots, two pairs, dark blue and gilt, 
 reflecting the moonlight in blunt gleams and splotches, 
 following a stone's throw behind. 
 
 Soft Shoes flashes through a patch of moonlight, then 
 darts into a blind labyrinth of alleys and becomes only 
 an intermittent scufSe ahead somewhere in the enfold- 
 ing darkness. In go Flowing Boots, with short swords 
 lurching and long plumes awry, finding a breath to curse 
 God and the black lanes of London. 
 
 Soft Shoes leaps a shadowy gate and crackles through 
 a hedgerow. Flowing Boots leap the gate and crackles 
 through the hedgerow — and there, startlingly, is the 
 watch ahead — two murderous pikemen of ferocious cast 
 of mouth acquired in Holland and the Spanish marches. 
 
 But there is no cry for help. The pursued does not fall 
 panting at the feet of the watch, clutching a purse; 
 neither do the pursuers raise a hue and cry. Soft Shoes 
 goes by in a rush of swift air. The watch curse and 
 hesitate, glance after the fugitive, and then spread their 
 pikes grimly across the road and wait for Flowing Boots. 
 Darkness, like a great hand, cuts off the even flow of the 
 moon. 
 
 The hand moves off the moon whose pale caress finds 
 again the eaves and lintels, and the watch, wounded and 
 tumbled in the dust. Up the street one of Flowing 
 Boots leaves a black trail of spots xmtil he binds himself, 
 clumsily as he nms, with fine lace caught from his 
 throat. 
 
 2.2S 
 
TALES OF THE JAZZ AGE 
 
 c was no affair for the watch: Satan was at large to- 
 -dght and Satan seemed to be he who appeared dinJy 
 in front, heel over gate, knee over fence. Moreover, 
 the adversary was obviously travelling near home or at 
 least in that section of London consecrated to his coarser 
 whims, for the street narrowed like a road in a picture 
 and the houses bent over further and further, cooping 
 in natural ambushes suitable for murder and its histrionic 
 sister, sudden death. 
 
 Down long and sinuous lanes twisted the himted 
 and the harriers, always in and out of the moon in a 
 perpetual queen's move over a checker-board of glints 
 and patches. Ahead, the quarry, minus his leather 
 jerkin now and half blinded by drips of sweat, had 
 taken to scanning his groimd desperately on both sides. 
 As a result he suddenly slowed short, and retracing his 
 steps a bit scooted up an alley so dark that it seemed that 
 here sxm and moon had been in eclipse since the last 
 glacier slipped roaring over the earth. Two hundred 
 yards down he stopped and crammed himself into a 
 niche in the wall where he huddled and panted silently, 
 a grotesque god without bulk or outline in the gloom. 
 
 Flowing Boots, two pairs, drew near, came up, went 
 by, halted twenty yards beyond him, and spoke in deep- 
 limged, scanty whispers: 
 
 "I was attune to that scuffle; it stopped." 
 
 "Within twenty paces." 
 
 "He's hid." 
 
 "Stay together now and we'll cut him up." 
 
 The voice faded into a low crunch of a boot, nor did 
 Soft Shoes wait to hear more — ^he sprang in three leaps 
 across the alley, where he bounded up, flapped for a 
 moment on the top of the wall like a huge bird, and dis- 
 appeared, gulped down by the hungry night at a mouth- 
 ful. 
 
TARQUm OF CHEAPSEDE 227 
 
 II 
 
 "Ee read at wine, he read in bed, 
 He read aloud, had he the breath, 
 His every thought was with the dead, 
 And so he read himself to death." 
 
 Any visitor to the old James the First graveyard near 
 Peat's Hill may spell out this bit of doggerel, undoubt- 
 edly one of the worst recorded of an Elizabethan, on the 
 tomb of Wessel Caxter. 
 
 This death of his, says the antiquary, occurred when 
 he was thirty-seven, but as this story is concerned with 
 the night of a certain chase through darkness, we find 
 him still alive, still reading. His eyes were somewhat 
 dim, his stomach somewhat obvious — ^he was a mis- 
 built man and indolent — oh. Heavens ! But an era is an 
 era, and in the reign of Elizabeth, by the grace of Luther, 
 Queen of England, no man could help but catch the 
 spirit of enthusiasm. Every loft in Cheapside pub- 
 lished its Magnum Folium (or magazine) of the new 
 blank verse; the Cheapside Players would produce any- 
 thing on sight as long as it "got away from those reac- 
 tionary miracle plays," and the English Bible had run 
 through seven "very large" printings in as many 
 months. 
 
 So Wessel Caxter (who in his youth had gone to sea) 
 was now a reader of all on which he could lay his hands — 
 he read manuscripts in holy friendship; he dined rotten 
 poets; he loitered about the shops where the Magna 
 Folia were printed, and he listened tolerantly while the 
 young playwrights wrangled and bickered among them- 
 selves, and behind each other's backs made bitter and 
 malicious charges of plagiarism or anything else they 
 could think of. 
 
228 TALES OF THE JAZZ AGE 
 
 To-night he had a book, a piece of work which, though 
 inordinately versed, contained, he thought, some rather 
 excellent political satire. "The Faerie Queene" by Ed- 
 mund Spenser lay before him under the tremulous 
 candle-light. He had ploughed through a canto; he was 
 beginning another: 
 
 The Legend of Britomartis or of Chastity 
 
 It falls me here to write of Chastity. 
 
 The fayrest vertue, far above the rest. . . . 
 
 A sudden rush of feet on the stairs, a rusty swing-open 
 of the thin door, and a man thrust himself into the 
 room, a man without a jerkin, panting, sobbing, on the 
 verge of collapse. 
 
 "Wessel," words choked him, "stick me away some- 
 where, love of Our Lady ! " 
 
 Caxter rose, carefully closing his book, and bolted 
 the door in some concern. 
 
 "I'm pursued," cried out Soft Shoes. "I vow there's 
 two short-witted blades trying to make me into mince- 
 meat and near succeeding. They saw me hop the back 
 waU!" 
 
 "It would need," said Wessel, looking at him curiously, 
 "several battalions armed with blunderbusses, and two 
 or three Armadas, to keep you reasonably secure from 
 the revenges of the world." 
 
 Soft Shoes smiled with satisfaction. His sobbing 
 gasps were giving way to quick, precise breathing; his 
 hunted air had faded to a faintly perturbed irony. 
 
 "I feel little surprise," continued Wessel. 
 
 "They were two such dreary apes." 
 
 "Making a total of three." 
 
 "Only two unless you stick me away. Man, man, 
 come alive; they'll be on the stairs in a spark's age." 
 
TARQUIN OF CHEAPSmE 229 
 
 Wessel took a dismantled pike-staff from the comer, 
 and raising it to the high ceiling, dislodged a rough trap- 
 door opening into a garret above. 
 
 "There's no ladder." 
 
 He moved a bench under the trap, upon which Soft 
 Shoes mounted, crouched, hesitated, crouched again, 
 and then leaped amazingly upward. He caught at the 
 edge of the aperture and swung back and forth for a 
 moment, shifting his hold; finally doubled up and disap- 
 peared into the darkness above. There was a scurry, 
 a migration of rats, as the trap-door was replaced; . . . 
 silence. 
 
 Wessel returned to his reading-table, opened to the 
 Legend of Britomartis or of Chastity — and waited. 
 Almost a minute later there was a scramble on the 
 stairs and an intolerable hammering at the door. Wessel 
 sighed and, picking up his candle, rose. 
 
 "Who's there?" 
 
 "Open the door!" 
 
 "Who's there?" 
 
 An aching blow frightened the frail wood, splintered 
 it around the edge. Wessel opened it a scarce three 
 inches, and held the candle high. His was to play the 
 timorous, the super-respectable citizen, disgracefully 
 disturbed. 
 
 "One small hour of the night for rest. Is that too 
 much to ask from every brawler and " 
 
 "Quiet, gossip! Have you seen a perspiring fellow ?" 
 
 The shadows of two gallants fell in immense waver- 
 ing outlines over the narrow stairs; by the Hght Wessel 
 scrutinized them closely. Gentlemen, they were, hast- 
 ily but richly dressed — one of them wounded severdy 
 in the hand, both radiating a sort of furious horror. 
 Waving aside Wessel's ready miscomprehension, they 
 pushed by him into the room and with their swords 
 
230 TALES OF THE JAZZ AGE 
 
 went through the business of poking carefully into all 
 suspected dark spots in the room, further extending 
 their search to Wessel's bedchamber. 
 
 "Is he hid here?" demanded the wounded man 
 fiercely. 
 
 "Is who here?" 
 
 "Any man but you." 
 
 "Only two others that I know of." 
 
 For a second Wessel feared that he had been too 
 damned fimny, for the gallants made as though to prick 
 him through. 
 
 "I heard a man on the stairs," he said hastily, "full 
 five minutes ago, it was. He most certainly failed to 
 come up." 
 
 He went on to explain his absorption in " The Faerie 
 Queene " but, for the moment at least, his visitors, like 
 the great saints, were aneesthetic to culture. 
 
 "What's been done?" inquired Wessel. 
 
 "Violence!" said the man with the wounded hand. 
 Wessel noticed that his eyes were quite wild. "My own 
 sister. Oh, Christ in heaven, give us this man !" 
 
 Wessel winced. 
 
 "Who is the man?" 
 
 " God's word ! We know not even that. What's 
 that trap up there ?" he added suddenly. 
 
 "It's nailed down. It's not been used for years." 
 He thought of the pole in the comer and quailed in his 
 belly, but the utter despair of the two men dulled their 
 astuteness. 
 
 "It would take a ladder for any one not a tumbler," 
 said the wounded man listlessly. 
 
 His companion broke into hysterical laughter. 
 
 "A tumbler. Oh, a tumbler. Oh " 
 
 Wessel stared at them in wonder. 
 
TARQUIN OF CHEAPSIDE 231 
 
 "That appeals to my most tragic humor," cried the 
 man, " that no one — oh, no one — could get up there but 
 a tumbler." 
 
 The gallant with the wounded hand snapped his 
 good fingers impatiently. 
 
 "We must go next door — and then on " 
 
 Helplessly they went as two walking under a dark 
 and storm-swept sky. 
 
 Wessel closed and bolted the door and stood a mo- 
 ment by it, frowning in pity. 
 
 A low-breathed " Ha ! " made him look up. Soft Shoes 
 had already raised the trap and was looking down into 
 the room, his rather elfish face squeezed into a grimace, 
 half of distaste, half of sardonic amusement. 
 
 "They take off their heads with their helmets," he 
 remarked in a whisper, "but as for you and me, Wessel, 
 we are two cunning men." 
 
 "Now you be cursed," cried Wessel vehemently. "I 
 knew you for a dog, but when I hear even the half of a 
 tale like this, I know you for such a dirty cur that I am 
 minded to club your skull." 
 
 Soft Shoes stared at him, blinking. 
 
 "At all events," he replied finally, "I find dignity im- 
 possible in this position." 
 
 With this he let his body through the trap, hung for 
 an instant, and dropped the seven feet to the floor. 
 
 "There was a rat considered my ear with the air of a 
 gourmet," he continued, dusting his hands on his 
 breeches. "I told him in the rat's peculiar idiom that 
 I was deadly poison, so he took himself off." 
 
 "Let's hear of this night's lechery!" insisted Wessel 
 angrily. 
 
 Soft Shoes touched his thumb to his nose and wiggled 
 the fingers derisively at Wessel. 
 
232 TALES OF THE JAZZ AGE 
 
 " Street gamin ! " muttered Wessel. 
 
 "Have you any paper?" demanded Soft Shoes irrele- 
 vantly, and then rudely added, "or can you write?" 
 
 "Why should I give you paper?" 
 
 "You wanted to hear of the night's entertainment. 
 So you shall, and you give me pen, ink, a sheaf of paper, 
 and a room to myself." 
 
 Wessel hesitated. 
 
 "Get out!" he said finally. 
 
 "As you will. Yet you have missed a most intrigu- 
 ing story." 
 
 Wessel wavered — ^he was soft as taffy, that man — 
 gave in. Soft Shoes went into the adjoining room with 
 the begrudged writing materials and precisely closed the 
 door. Wessel grunted and returned to "The Faerie 
 Queene "; so silence came once more upon the house. 
 
 Ill 
 
 Three o'clock went into four. The room paled, the 
 dark outside was shot through with damp and chill, 
 and Wessel, cupping his brain in his hands, bent low over 
 his table, tracing through the pattern of knights and 
 fairies and the harrowing distresses of many girls. 
 There were dragons chortling along the narrow street 
 outside; when the sleepy armorer's boy began his work 
 at half-past five the heavy clink and chank of plate and 
 linked mail swelled to the echo of a marching cavalcade. 
 
 A fog shut down at the first flare of dawn, and the room 
 was grayish yellow at six when Wessel tiptoed to his 
 cupboard bedchamber and pulled open the door. His 
 guest turned on him a face pale as parchment in which 
 two distraught eyes burned like great red letters. He 
 had drawn a chair close to Wessel's prie-dieu which he 
 was using as a desk; and on it was an amazing stack of 
 
TARQUIN OF CHEAPSIDE 233 
 
 closely written pages. With a long sigh Wessel with- 
 drew and returned to his siren, calling himself fool for 
 not claiming his bed here at dawn. 
 
 The clump of boots outside, the croaking of old bel- 
 dames from attic to attic, the dull murmur of morning, 
 unnerved him, and, dozing, he slumped in his chair, his 
 brain, overladen with sound and color, working intoler- 
 ably over the imagery that stacked it. In this restless 
 dream of his he was one of a thousand groaning bodies 
 crushed near the sun, a helpless bridge for the strong- 
 eyed Apollo. The dream tore at him, scraped along 
 his mind like a ragged knife. When a hot hand touched 
 his shoulder, he awoke with what was nearly a scream 
 to find the fog thick in the room and his guest, a gray 
 ghost of misty stuff, beside him with a pile of paper in 
 his hand. 
 
 "It should be a most intriguing tale, I believe, though 
 it requires some going over. May I ask you to lock it 
 away, and in God's name let me sleep ? " 
 
 He waited for no answer, but thrust the pile at Wessel, 
 and literally poured himself like stuff from a suddenly 
 inverted bottle upon a couch in the comer; slept, with 
 his breathing regular, but his brow wrinkled in a curious 
 and somewhat uncanny manner. 
 
 Wessel yawned sleepily and, glancing at the scrawled, 
 uncertain first page, he began reading aloud very softly: 
 
 The Rape of Lucrece 
 
 "From the besieged Ardea all in post, 
 Borne by the trustless wings of false desire, 
 Lust-breathing Tarquin leaves the Roman host " 
 
 ^ \iCwi».s mmLi/^ 
 
" RUSSET WITCH ! " 
 
 Merlin Grainger was employed by the Moonlight 
 Quill Bookshop, which you may have visited, just 
 around the comer from the Ritz-Carlton on Forty- 
 seventh Street. The Moonlight Quill is, or rather was, 
 a very romantic little store, considered radical and ad- 
 mitted dark. It was spotted interiorly with red and 
 orange posters of breathless exotic intent, and lit no less 
 by the shiny reflecting bindings of special editions than 
 by the great squat lamp of crimson satin that, lighted 
 through all the day, swung overhead. It was truly a 
 mellow bookshop. The words "Moonlight Quill" were 
 worked over the door in a sort of serpentine embroidery. 
 The windows seemed always full of something that had 
 passed the literary censors with little to spare; volumes 
 with covers of deep orange which offer their titles on 
 little white paper squares. And over all there was the 
 smell of the musk, which the clever, inscrutable Mr. 
 Moonlight Quill ordered to be sprinkled about — the smell 
 half of a curiosity shop in Dickens' London and half of 
 a coffee-house on the warm shores of the Bosphorus. 
 
 From nine imtil five-thirty Merlin Grainger asked 
 bored old ladies in black and young men with dark cir- 
 cles under their eyes if they "cared for this fellow" or 
 were interested in first editions. Did they buy novels 
 with Arabs on the cover, or books which gave Shake- 
 speare's newest sonnets as dictated psychically to Miss 
 Sutton of South Dakota? he sniffed. As a matter of 
 fact, his own taste ran to these latter, but as an employee 
 at the Moonlight Quill he assumed for the working day 
 the attitude of a disillusioned coimoisseur. 
 
 After he had crawled over the window display to pull 
 
 234 
 
"O RUSSET WITCH!" 235 
 
 down the front shade at five-thirty every afternoon, and 
 said good-bye to the mysterious Mr. Moonlight Quill 
 and the lady clerk, Miss McCracken, and the lady 
 stenographer. Miss Masters, he went home to the girl, 
 Caroline. He did not eat supper with Caroline. It 
 is unbelievable that Caroline would have considered 
 eating off his bureau with the collar buttons dangerously 
 near the cottage cheese, and the ends of Merlin's necktie 
 just missing his glass of milk — ^he had never asked her 
 to eat with him. He ate alone. He went into Braeg- 
 dort's delicatessen on Sixth Avenue and bought a box 
 of crackers, a tube of anchovy paste, and some oranges, 
 or else a little jar of sausages and some potato salad and 
 a bottled soft drink, and with these in a brown package 
 he went to his room at Fifty-something West Fifty- 
 eighth Street and ate his supper and saw Caroline. 
 
 Caroline was a very young and gay person who lived 
 with some older lady and was possibly nineteen. She 
 was like a ghost in that she never existed until evening. 
 She sprang into life when the lights went on in her apart- 
 ment at about six, and she disappeared, at the latest, 
 about midnight. Her apartment was a nice one, in a 
 nice building with a white stone front, opposite the south 
 side of Central Park. The back of her apartment faced 
 the single window of the single room occupied by the 
 single Mr. Grainger. 
 
 He called her Caroline because there was a picture 
 that looked like her on the jacket of a book of that name 
 down at the Moonlight Quill. 
 
 Now, Merlin Grainger was a thin young man of 
 twenty-five, with dark hair and no mustache or beard 
 or anything like that, but Caroline was dazzling and 
 light, with a shimmering morass of russet waves to take 
 the place of hair, and the sort of features that remind you 
 of kisses — the sort of features you thought belonged to 
 
236 TALES OF THE JAZZ AGE 
 
 your first love, but know, when you come across an old 
 picture, didn't. She dressed in pink or blue usually, 
 but of late she had sometimes put on a slender black 
 gown that was evidently her especial pride, for whenever 
 she wore it she would stand regarding a certain place 
 on the wall, which Merlin thought must be a mirror. 
 She sat usually in the profile chair near the window, but 
 sometimes honored the chaise longtie by the lamp, and 
 often she leaned 'way back and smoked a cigarette with 
 posturings of her arms and hands that Merlin considered 
 very graceful. 
 
 At another time she had come to the window and stood 
 in it magnificently, and looked out because the moon had 
 lost its way and was dripping the strangest and most 
 transforming brilliance into the areaway between, turn- 
 ing the motif of ash-cans and clothes-lines into a vivid 
 impressionism of silver casks and gigantic gossamer 
 cobwebs. Merlin was sitting in plain sight, eating cot- 
 tage cheese with sugar and mUk on it; and so quickly 
 did he reach out for the window cord that he tipped the 
 cottage cheese into his lap with his free hand — and the 
 milk wa^ cold and the sugar made spots on his trousers, 
 and he was sure that she had seen him after all. 
 
 Sometimes there were callers — men in dinner coats, 
 who stood and bowed, hat in hand and coat on arm, as 
 they talked to Caroline; then bowed some more and 
 followed her out of the light, obviously bound for a play 
 or for a dance. Other young men came and sat and 
 smoked cigarettes, and seemed trying to tell Caroline 
 something — she sitting either in the profile chair and 
 watching them with eager intentness or else in the 
 chaise tongue by the lamp, looking very lovely and youth- 
 fully inscrutable indeed. 
 
 Merlia enjoyed these calls. Of some of the men he 
 approved. Others won only his grudging toleration, 
 
"0 RUSSET WITCH!" 237 
 
 one or two he loathed — especially the most frequent 
 caller, a man with black hair and a black goatee and a 
 pitch-dark soul, who seemed to Merlin vaguely familiar, 
 but whom he was never quite able to recognize. 
 
 Now, Merlin's whole life was not "bound up with this 
 romance he had constructed"; it was not "the happiest 
 hour of his day." He never arrived in time to rescue 
 Caroline from "clutches"; nor did he even marry her. 
 A much stranger thing happened than any of these, and 
 it is this strange thing that will presently be set down 
 here. It began one October afternoon when she walked 
 briskly into the mellow interior of the Moonlight Quill. 
 It was a dark afternoon, threatening rain and the end 
 of the world, and done in that particularly gloomy gray 
 in which only New York afternoons indulge. A breeze 
 was crying down the streets, whisking along battered 
 newspapers and pieces of things, and little lights were 
 pricking out all the windows — it was so desolate that 
 one was sorry for the tops of sky-scrapers lost up there in 
 the dark green and gray heaven, and felt that now surely 
 the farce was to close, and presently all the buildings 
 would collapse like card houses, and pile up in a dusty, 
 sardonic heap upon all the millions who presumed to 
 wind in and out of them. 
 
 At least these were the sort of musings that lay heavily 
 upon the soul of Merlin Grainger, as he stood by the win- 
 dow putting a dozen books back in a row, after a cyclonic 
 visit by a lady with ermine trimmings. He looked out 
 of the window full of the most distressing thoughts — of 
 the early novels of H. G. Wells, of the book of Genesis, 
 of how Thomas Edison had said that in thirty years 
 there would be no dwelling-houses upon the island, but 
 only a vast and turbulent bazaar; and then he set the 
 last book right side up, turned — and Caroline walked 
 cooUy into the shop. 
 
238 TALES OF THE JAZZ AGE 
 
 She was dressed in a jaunty but conventional walking 
 costume — lie remembered this when he thought about 
 it later. Her skirt was plaid, pleated like a concertina; 
 her jacket was a soft but brisk tan; her shoes and spats 
 were brown and her hat, small and trim, completed her 
 like the top of a very expensive and beautifully filled 
 candy box. 
 
 Merlin, breathless and startled, advanced nervously 
 toward her. 
 
 " Good-afternoon — " he said, and then stopped — why, 
 he did not know, except that it came to him that some- 
 thing very portentous in his life was about to occur, 
 and that it would need no furbishing but silence, and the 
 proper amount of expectant attention. And in that 
 minute before the thing began to happen he had the 
 sense of a breathless second hanging suspended in time: 
 he saw through the glass partition that bounded off the 
 little office the malevolent conical head of his employer, 
 Mr. Moonlight Quill, bent over his correspondence. 
 He saw Miss McCracken and Miss Masters as two 
 patches of hair drooping over piles of paper; he saw the 
 crimson lamp overhead, and noticed with a touch of 
 pleasure how really pleasant and romantic it made the 
 book-store seem. 
 
 Then the thing happened, or rather it began to hap- 
 pen. Caroline picked up a volume of poems lying loose 
 upon a pile, fingered it absently with her slender white 
 hand, and suddenly, with an easy gesture, tossed it up- 
 ward toward the ceiling, where it disappeared in the 
 crimson lamp and lodged there, seen through the il- 
 luminated silk as a dark, bulging rectangle. This 
 pleased her — she broke into young, contagious laughter, 
 in which Merliu found himself presently joining. 
 
 "It stayed up!" she cried merrily. "It stayed up, 
 didn't it?" To both of them this seemed the height of 
 
"O RUSSET WITCH!" 239 
 
 brilliant absurdity. Their laughter mingled, filled the 
 bookshop, and Merlin was glad to find that her voice 
 was rich and full of sorcery. 
 
 "Try another," he found himself suggesting — "try a 
 red one." 
 
 At this her laughter increased, and she had to rest her 
 hands upon the stack to steady herself. 
 
 "Try another," she managed to articulate between 
 spasms of mirth. "Oh, goUy, try another!" 
 
 "Try two." 
 
 "Yes, try two. Oh, I'll choke if I don't stop laugh- 
 ing. Here it goes." 
 
 Suiting her action to the word, she picked up a red 
 book and sent it in a gentle hyperbola toward the 
 ceiling, where it sank into the lamp beside the first. It 
 was a few minutes before either of them could do more 
 than rock back and forth in helpless glee; but then by 
 mutual agreement they took up the sport anew, this 
 time in unison. Merlin seized a large, specially bound 
 French classic and whirled it upward. Applauding his 
 own accuracy, he took a best-seller in one hand and a 
 book on barnacles in the other, and waited breathlessly 
 while she made her shot. Then the business waxed fast 
 and furious — sometimes they alternated, and, watching, 
 he found how supple she was in every movement; 
 sometimes one of them made shot after shot, picking up 
 the nearest book, sending it off, merely taking time to 
 follow it with a glance before reaching for another. 
 Within three minutes they had cleared a little place on 
 the table, and the lamp of crimson satin was so bulging 
 with books that it was near breaking. 
 
 "Silly game, basket-ball," she cried scornfully as a 
 book left her hand. "High-school girls play it in hideous 
 bloomers." 
 
 "Idiotic," he agreed. 
 
240 TALES OF THE JAZZ AGE 
 
 She paused in the act of tossing a book, and replaced 
 it suddenly in its position on the table. 
 
 "I think we've got room to sit down now," she said 
 gravely. 
 
 They had; they had cleared an ample space for two. 
 With a faint touch of nervousness Merlin glanced toward 
 Mr. Moonlight Quill's glass partition, but the three 
 heads were stUl bent earnestly over their work, and it 
 was evident that they had not seen what had gone on 
 in the shop. So when Caroline put her hands on the 
 table ^and hoisted herself up Merlin calmly imitated 
 her, and they sat side by side looking very earnestly at 
 each other. 
 
 "I had to see you," she began, with a rather pathetic 
 expression in her brown eyes. 
 
 "I know." 
 
 "It was that last time," she continued, her voice 
 trembling a little, though she tried to keep it steady. 
 " I was frightened. I don't like you to eat off the dresser. 
 I'm so afraid you'll — ^you'U swallow a coUar button." 
 
 "I did once — almost," he confessed reluctantly, "but 
 it's not so easy, you know. I mean you can swallow 
 the flat part easy enough or else the other part — that 
 is, separately — but for a whole collar button you'd 
 have to have a specially made throat." He was aston- 
 ishing himself by the deboimaire appropriateness of his 
 remarks. Words seemed for the first time in his life 
 to run at him shrieking to be used, gathering themselves 
 into carefully arranged squads and platoons, and beiijg 
 presented to him by punctilious adjutants of para- 
 graphs. 
 
 "That's what scared me," she said. "I knew you 
 had to have a specially made throat — and I knew, at 
 least I felt sure, that you didn't have one." 
 
 He nodded frankly. 
 
"O RUSSET WITCH!" 241 
 
 "I haven't. It costs money to have one — ^more 
 money unfortunately than I possess." 
 
 He felt no shame in saying this — rather a delight in 
 making the admission — he knew that nothing he could 
 say or do would be beyond her comprehension; least 
 of all his poverty, and the practical impossibility of ever 
 extricating himself from it. 
 
 Caroline looked down at her wrist watch, and with a 
 little cry slid from the table to her feet. 
 
 "It's after five," she cried. "I didn't realize. I have 
 to be at the Ritz at five-thirty. Let's hurry and get 
 this done. I've got a bet on it," 
 
 With one accord they set to work. Caroline began 
 the matter by seizing a book on insects and sending it 
 whizzing, and finally crashing through the glass parti- 
 tion that housed Mr. Moonlight Quill. The proprietor 
 glanced up with a wild look, brushed a few pieces of 
 glass from his desk, and went on with his letters. Miss 
 McCracken gave no sign of having heard — only Miss 
 Masters started and gave a little frightened scream be- 
 fore she bent to her task again. 
 
 But to Merlin and Caroline it didn't matter. In a 
 perfect orgy of energy they were hurling book after book 
 in all directions, imtil sometimes three or four were in 
 the air at once, smashing against shelves, cracking the 
 glass of pictures on the walls, falling in bruised and torn 
 heaps upon the floor. It was fortunate that no custom- 
 ers happened to come in, for it is certain they would never 
 have come in again — the noise was too tremendous, a 
 noise of smashing and ripping and tearing, mixed now 
 and then vidth the tinkling of glass, the quick breathing 
 of the two throwers, and the intermittent outbursts of 
 laughter to which both of them periodically surrendered. 
 
 At five-thirty Caroline tossed a last book at the lamp, 
 and so gave the final impetus to the load it carried. The 
 
242 TALES OF THE JAZZ AGE 
 
 weakened silk tore and dropped its cargo in one vast 
 splattering of white and color to the already littered 
 floor. Then with a sigh of relief she turned to Merlin 
 and held out her hand. 
 
 " Good-by," she said simply. 
 
 "Are you going?" He knew she was. His question 
 was simply a lingering wile to detain her and extract 
 for another moment that dazzling essence of light he 
 drew from her presence, to continue his enormous satis- 
 faction in her features, which were like kisses and, he 
 thought, like the features of a girl he had known back in 
 1910. For a minute he pressed the softness of her hand 
 — then she smiled and withdrew it and, before he could 
 spring to open the door, she had done it herself and was 
 gone out into the turbid and ominous twilight that 
 brooded narrowly over Forty-seventh Street. 
 
 I would like to tell you how Merlin, having seen how 
 beauty regards the wisdom of the years, walked into the 
 little partition of Mr. Moonlight Quill and gave up his 
 job then and there; thence issuing out into the street a 
 much finer and nobler and increasingly ironic man. But 
 the truth is much more commonplace. Merlin Grainger 
 stood up and surveyed the wreck of the bookshop, the 
 ruined volumes, the torn silk remnants of the once beau- 
 tiful crimson lamp, the crystalline sprinkling of broken 
 glass which lay in iridescent dust over the whole interior 
 — and then he went to a corner where a broom was kept 
 and began cleaning up and rearranging and, as far as he 
 was able, restoring the shop to its former condition. He 
 found that, though some few of the books were unin- 
 jured, most of them had suffered in varying extents. 
 The backs were off some, the pages were torn from others, 
 still others were just slightly cracked in the front, which, 
 as all careless book returners know, makes a book un- 
 salable, and therefore second-hand. 
 
"0 RUSSET WITCH!" 
 
 Nevertheless by six o'clock he had done much to re- 
 pair the damage. He had returned the books to their 
 original places, swept the floor, and put new lights in 
 the sockets overhead. The red shade itself was ruined 
 beyond redemption, and Merlin thought in some trepi- 
 dation that the money to replace it might have to come 
 out of his salary. At six, therefore, having done the 
 best he could, he crawled over the front window display 
 to pull down the blind. As he was treading delicately 
 back, he saw Mr. Moonlight QuiU rise from his desk, 
 put on his overcoat and hat, and emerge into the shop. 
 He nodded mysteriously^at Merlin and went toward the 
 door. With his hand on the knob he paused, turned 
 around, and in a voice curiously compounded of ferocity 
 and uncertainty, he said : 
 
 "If that girl comes in here again, you tell her to be- 
 have." 
 
 With that he opened the door, drowning Merlin's 
 meek "Yessir" in its creak, and went out. 
 
 Merlin stood there for a moment, deciding wisely 
 not to worry about what was for the present only a 
 possible futurity, and then he went into the back of the 
 shop and invited Miss Masters to have supper with him 
 at Pulpat's French Restaurant, where one could still 
 obtain red wine at dinner, despite the Great Federal 
 Government. Miss Masters accepted. 
 
 "Wine makes me feel all tingly," she said. 
 
 Merlin laughed inwardly as he compared her to Caro- 
 line, or rather as he didn't compare her. There was no 
 comparison. 
 
 II 
 
 Mr. Moonlight Quill, mysterious, exotic, and oriental 
 in temperament was, nevertheless, a man of decision. 
 And it was with decision that he approached the problem 
 
TALES OF THE JAZZ AGE 
 
 of his wrecked shop. Unless he should make an outlay 
 equal to the original cost of his entire stock — a step 
 which for certain private reasons he did not wish to take 
 — it would be impossible for him to continue in business 
 with the Moonlight Quill as before. There was but one 
 thing to do. He promptly turned his establishment 
 from an up-to-the-minute book-store into a second-hand 
 bookshop. The damaged books were marked down from 
 twenty-five to fifty per cent, the name over the door 
 whose serpentine embroidery had once shone so inso- 
 lently bright, was allowed to grow dim and take on the 
 indescribably vague color of old paint, and, having a 
 strong penchant for ceremonial, the proprietor even 
 went so far as to buy two skull-caps of shoddy red felt, 
 one for himself and one for his clerk. Merlin Grainger. 
 Moreover, he let his goatee grow until it resembled the 
 tail-feathers of an ancient sparrow and substituted for 
 a once dapper business suit a reverence-inspiring affair 
 of shiny alpaca. 
 
 In fact, within a year after Caroline's catastrophic 
 visit to the bookshop the only thing in it that preserved 
 any semblance of being up to date was Miss Masters. 
 Miss McCracken had followed in the footsteps of Mr. 
 Moonlight Quill and become an intolerable dowd. 
 
 For Merlin too, from a feeling compounded of loyalty 
 and listlessness, had let his exterior take on the semblance 
 of a deserted garden. He accepted the red felt skull- 
 cap as a symbol of his decay. Always a young man 
 known as a "pusher," he had been, since the day of his 
 graduation from the manual training departrdent of a 
 New York High School, an inveterate brusher of clothes, 
 hair, teeth, and even eyebrows, and had learned the 
 value of laying all his clean socks toe upon toe and heel 
 upon heel in a certain drawer of his bureau, which would 
 be known as the sock drawer. 
 
"0 RUSSET WITCH!" 245 
 
 These things, he felt, had won him his place in the 
 greatest splendor of the Moonlight Quill. It was due to 
 them that he was not still making "chests useful for 
 keeping things," as he was taught with breathless prac- 
 ticality in High School, and selling them to whoever 
 had use of such chests — ^possibly imdertakers. Never- 
 theless when the progressive Moonlight QuiU became 
 the retrogressive Moonlight QuiU he preferred to sink 
 with it, and so took to letting his suits gather undis- 
 turbed the wispy burdens of the air and to throwing his 
 socks indiscriminately into the shirt drawer, the under- 
 wear drawer, and even into no drawer at all. It was not 
 uncommon in his new carelessness to let many of his 
 clean clothes go directly back to the laundry without 
 having ever been worn, a common eccentricity of im- 
 poverished bachelors. And this in the face of his favorite 
 magazines, which at that time were fairly staggering 
 with articles by successful authors against the fright- 
 ful impudence of the condemned poor, such as the buy- 
 ing of wearable shirts and nice cuts of meat, and the 
 fact that they preferred good investments in personal 
 jewelry to respectable ones in four per cent saving- 
 banks. 
 
 It was indeed a strange state of affairs and a sorry 
 one for many worthy and God-fearing men. For the 
 first time in the history of the Republic almost any negro 
 north of Georgia could change a one-dollar bill. But 
 as at that time the cent was rapidly approaching the 
 purchasing power of the Chinese ubu and was only a 
 thing you got back occasionally after paying for a soft 
 drink, and could use merely in getting your correct 
 weight, this was perhaps not so strange a phenomenon 
 as it at first seems. It was too curious a state of things, 
 however, for Merlin Grainger to take the step that he 
 did take — the hazardous, almost involuntary step of 
 
-46 TALES OF THE JAZZ AGE 
 
 proposing to Miss Masters. Stranger still that she 
 accepted him. 
 
 It was at Pulpat's on Saturday night and over a $1.75 
 bottle of water diluted with vin ordinaire that the pro- 
 posal occurred. 
 
 "Wine makes me feel all tingly, doesn't it you?" 
 chattered Miss Masters gaily. 
 
 "Yes," answered Merlin absently; and then, after a 
 long and pregnant pause: "Miss Masters — Olive — I 
 want to say something to you if you'll listen to me." 
 
 The tingliness of Miss Masters (who knew what was 
 coming) increased until it seemed that she would shortly 
 be electrocuted by her own nervous reactions. But her 
 "Yes, Merlin," came without a sign or flicker of interior 
 disturbance. Merlin swallowed a stray bit of air that 
 he found in his mouth. 
 
 "I have no fortune," he said with the manner of 
 making an armouncement. "I have no fortune at aU." 
 
 Their eyes met, locked, became wistful, and dreamy 
 and beautiful. 
 
 "OHve," he told her, "I love you." 
 
 "I love you too. Merlin," she answered simply. 
 "Shall we have another bottle of wine?" 
 
 "Yes," he cried, his heart beating at a great rate. 
 "Do you mean " 
 
 "To drink to our engagement," she interrupted 
 bravely. "May it be a short one !" 
 
 "No!" he almost shouted, bringing his fist fiercely 
 down upon the table. "May it last forever!" 
 
 "What?" 
 
 "I mean — oh, I see what you mean. You're right. 
 May it be a short one." He laughed and added, j" My 
 error." 
 
 After the wine arrived they discussed the matter 
 thoroughly. 
 
"O RUSSET WITCH!" 247 
 
 "We'll have to take a small apartment at first," he 
 said, "and I believe, yes, by golly, I know there's a 
 small one in the house where I live, a big room and a 
 sort of a dressing-room-kitchenette and the use of a 
 bath on the same floor." 
 
 She clapped her hands happily, and he thought how 
 pretty she was really, that is, the upper part of her face — 
 from the bridge of the nose down she was somewhat out 
 of true. She continued enthusiastically: 
 
 "And as soon as we can afford it we'll take a real swell 
 apartment, with an elevator and a telephone girl." 
 
 "And after that a place in the country — and a car." 
 
 "I can't imagine nothing more ftm. Can you ?" 
 
 Merlin fell silent a moment. He was thinking that 
 he would have to give up his room, the fourth floor rear. 
 Yet it mattered very little now. During the past year and 
 a half — ^in fact, from the very date of Caroline's visit to 
 the Moonlight Qmll — ^he had never seen her. For a week 
 after that visit her lights had failed to go on — darkness 
 brooded out into the areaway, seemed to grope blindly 
 in at his expectant, uncurtained window. Then the 
 lights had appeared at last, and instead of Caroline and 
 her callers they showed a stodgy family — a little man 
 with a bristly mustache and a full-bosomed woman 
 who spent her evenings patting her hips and rearrang- 
 ing bric-a-brac. After two days of them MerUn had 
 callously pulled down his shade. 
 
 No, MerliQ could think of nothing more fun than rising 
 in the world with Olive. There would be a cottage in 
 a suburb, a cottage painted blue, just one class below 
 the sort of cottages that are of white stucco with a 
 green roof. In the grass around the cottage would be 
 rusty trowels and a broken green bench and a baby- 
 carriage with a wicker body that sagged to the left. 
 And around the grass and the baby-carriage and the 
 
248 TALES OF THE JAZZ AGE 
 
 cottage itself, around his whole world there would be 
 the arms of Olive, a little stouter, the arms of her neo- 
 Olivian period, when, as she walked, her cheeks would 
 tremble up and down ever so slightly from too much 
 face-massaging. He could hear her voice now, two 
 spoons' length away: 
 
 "I knew you were going to say this to-night. Merlin. 
 I could see " 
 
 She could see. Ah — suddenly he wondered how much 
 she could see. Could she see that the girl who had come 
 in with a party of three men and sat down at the next 
 table was Caroline? Ah, could she see that? Could 
 she see that the men brought with them liquor far more 
 potent than Pulpat's red ink condensed threefold . . . ? 
 
 Merlin stared breathlessly, half-hearing through an 
 auditory ether Olive's low, soft monologue, as like a per- 
 sistent honey-bee she sucked sweetness from her mem- 
 orable hour. Merlin was listening to the clinking of 
 ice and the fine laughter of all four at some pleasantry — 
 and that laughter of Caroline's that he knew so well 
 stirred him, lifted him, called his heart imperiously 
 over to her table, whither it obediently went. He could 
 see her quite plainly, and he fancied that in the last year 
 and a half she had changed, if ever so slightly. Was 
 it the light or were her cheeks a little thinner and her 
 eyes less fresh, if more liquid, than of old ? Yet the 
 shadows were still purple in her russet hair; her mouth 
 hinted yet of kisses, as did the profile that came some- 
 times between his eyes and a row of books, when it was 
 twilight in the bookshop where the crimson lamp pre- 
 sided no more. 
 
 And she had been drinking. The threefold flush in 
 her cheeks was compounded of youth and wine and fine 
 cosmetic — that he could tell. She was making great 
 amusement for the young man on her left and the portly 
 
"0 RUSSET WITCH!" 249 
 
 person on her right, and even for the old fellow opposite 
 her, for the latter from time to time uttered the shocked 
 and mildly reproachful cackles of another generation. 
 Merlin caught the words of a song she was intermittently- 
 singing 
 
 "Just snap your fingers at care, 
 Don't cross the bridge 'til you're there " 
 
 The portly person filled her glass with chill amber. 
 A waiter after several trips about the table, and many 
 helpless glances at Caroline, who was maintaining a 
 cheerful, futile questionnaire as to the succulence of this 
 dish or that, managed to obtain the semblance of an 
 order and hurried away. . . . 
 
 Olive was speaking to Merlin 
 
 "When, then?" she asked, her voice faintly shaded 
 with disappointment. He realized that he had just 
 answered no to some question she had asked him. 
 
 "Oh, sometime." 
 
 "Don't you— care?" 
 
 A rather pathetic poignancy in her question brought 
 his eyes back to her. 
 
 "As soon as possible, dear," he replied with sur- 
 prising tenderness. "In two months — ^in June." 
 
 "So soon ? " Her delightfid excitement quite took her 
 breath away. 
 
 "Oh, yes, I think we'd better say June. No use 
 v/aiting." 
 
 OUve began to pretend that two months was really 
 too short a time for her to make preparations. Wasn't 
 he a bad boy! Wasn't he impatient, though! Well, 
 she'd show him he mustn't be too quick with her. In- 
 deed he was so sudden she didn't exactly know whether 
 she ought to marry him at aU. 
 
250 TALES OF THE JAZZ AGE 
 
 "June," he repeated sternly. 
 
 Olive sighed and smiled and drank her coffee, her 
 little finger lifted high above the others in true refined 
 fashion. A stray thought came to Merlin that he would 
 like to buy five rings and throw at it. 
 
 "By gosh!" he exclaimed aloud. Soon he would be 
 putting rings on one of her fingers. 
 
 His eyes swung sharply to the right. The party of 
 four had become so riotous that the head-waiter had 
 approached and spoken to them. Caroline was arguing 
 with this head-waiter in a raised voice, a voice so clear 
 and young that it seemed as though the whole restaurant 
 would listen — the whole restaurant except Olive Masters, 
 self-absorbed in her new secret. 
 
 "How do you do ? " Caroline was saying. "Probably 
 the handsomest head-waiter in captivity. Too much 
 noise? Very unfortunate. Something'll have to be 
 done about it. Gerald" — she addressed the man on her 
 right — "the head-waiter says there's too much noise. 
 Appeals to us to have it stopped. What'll I say ? " 
 
 "Sh!" remonstrated Gerald, with laughter. "Sh!" 
 and Merlin heard him add in an undertone: "All the 
 bourgeoisie will be aroused. This is where the floor- 
 walkers learn French." 
 
 Caroline sat up straight in sudden alertness. 
 
 "Where's a floorwalker?" she cried. "Show me a 
 floorwalker." This seemed to amuse the party, for they 
 aU, including Caroline, burst into renewed laughter. 
 The head-waiter, after a last conscientious but despair- 
 ing admonition, became Gallic with his shoulders and 
 retired into the background. 
 
 Pulpat's, as every one knows, has the unvarying re- 
 spectability of the table d'h6te. It is not a gay place 
 in the conventional sense. One comes, drinks the red 
 wine, talks perhaps a little more and a little louder than 
 
"0 RUSSET WITCH!" 251 
 
 usual under the low, smoky ceilings, and then goes home. 
 It closes up at nine-thirty, tight as a drum; the police- 
 man is paid off and given an extra bottle of wine for the 
 missis, the coat-room girl hands her tips to the collec- 
 tor, and then darkness crushes the little round tables 
 out of sight and hfe. But excitement was prepared for 
 Pulpat's this evening — excitement of no mean variety. 
 A girl with russet, purple-shadowed hair mounted to 
 her table-top and began to dance thereon. 
 
 "Sacre nom de Dieu ! Come down oflf there ! " cried the 
 head-waiter. "Stop that music!" 
 
 But the musicians were already playing so loud that 
 they could pretend not to hear his order; having once 
 been young, they played louder and gayer than ever, and 
 Caroline danced with grace and vivacity, her pink, 
 filmy dress swirling about her, her agile arms playing in 
 supple, tenuous gestures along the smoky air. 
 
 A group of Frenchmen at a table near by broke into 
 cries of applause, in which other parties joined — in a 
 moment the room was full of clapping and shouting; 
 half the diners were on their feet, crowding up, and on 
 the outskirts the hastily summoned proprietor was 
 giving indistinct vocal evidences of his desire to put an 
 end to this thing as quickly as possible. 
 
 "... Merlin!" cried Olive, awake, aroused at 
 last; "she's such a wicked girl! Let's get out — now!" 
 
 The fascinated Merlin protested feebly that the check 
 was not paid. 
 
 "It's all right. Lay five dollars on the table. I 
 despise that girl. I can't hear to look at her." She was 
 on her feet now, tugging at Merlin's arm. 
 
 Helplessly, listlessly, and then with what amounted 
 to downright unwillingness, Merlin rose, followed Olive 
 dumbly as she picked her way through the delirious 
 clamor, now approaching its height and threatening to 
 
252 TALES OF THE JAZZ AGE 
 
 become a wild and memorable riot. Submissively he 
 took his coat and stumbled up half a dozen steps into 
 the moist April air outside, his ears still ringing with the 
 sound of light feet on the table and of laughter all about 
 and over the little world of the cafe. In silence they 
 walked along toward Fifth Avenue and a bus. 
 
 It was not until next day that she told him about the 
 wedding — how she had moved the date forward : it was 
 much better that they should be married on the first of 
 May. 
 
 ni 
 
 And married they were, in a somewhat stuffy maimer, 
 under the chandelier of the flat where Olive lived with 
 her mother. After marriage came elation, and then, 
 gradually, the growth of weariness. Responsibility de- 
 scended upon Merlin, the responsibility of making his 
 thirty dollars a week and her twenty suffice to keep 
 them respectably fat and to hide with decent garments 
 the evidence that they were. 
 
 It was decided after several weeks of disastrous and 
 well-nigh humiliating experiments with restaurants that 
 they would join the great army of the delicatessen-fed, 
 so he took up his old way of life again, in that he stopped 
 every evening at Braegdort's delicatessen and bought po- 
 tatoes in salad, ham in slices, and sometimes even stuffed 
 tomatoes in bursts of extravagance. 
 
 Then he would trudge homeward, enter the dark hall- 
 way, and climb three rickety flights of stairs covered 
 by an ancient carpet of long obliterated design. The 
 hall had an ancient smell — of the vegetables of 1880, of 
 the furniture polish in vogue when "Adam-and-Eve" 
 Bryan ran against William McKinley, of portieres an 
 ounce heavier with dust, from worn-out shoes and lint 
 from dresses turned long since into patch-work quilts. 
 
"O RUSSET WITCH!" 253 
 
 This smell would pursue him up the stairs, revivified 
 and made poignant at each landing by the aura of con- 
 temporary cooking, then, as he began the next ilight, 
 diminishing into the odor of the dead routine of dead 
 generations. 
 
 Eventually would occur the door of his room, which 
 slipped open with indecent willingness and closed with 
 almost a sniff upon his "Hello, dear! Got a treat for 
 you to-night." 
 
 Olive, who always rode home on the bus to "get a 
 morsel of air," would be making the bed and hanging up 
 things. At his call she would come up to him and give 
 him a quick kiss with wide-open eyes, while he held her 
 upright like a ladder, his hands on her two arms, as 
 though she were a thing without equilibrium, and would, 
 once he relinquished hold, fall stiffly backward to the 
 floor. This is the kiss that comes in with the second 
 year of marriage, succeeding the bridegroom kiss (which 
 is rather stagey at best, say those who know about such 
 things, and apt to be copied from passionate movies). 
 
 Then came supper, and after that they went out for a 
 walk, up two blocks and through Central Park, or some- 
 times to a moving picture, which taught them patiently 
 that they were the sort of people for whom life was or- 
 dered, and that something very grand and brave and 
 beautiful would soon happen to them if they were docile 
 and obedient to their rightful superiors and kept away 
 from pleasure. 
 
 Such was their day for three years. Then change 
 came into their lives: Olive had a baby, and as a result 
 Merlin had a new influx of material resources. In the 
 third week of Olive's confinement, after an hour of ner- 
 vous rehearsing, he went into the office of Mr. Moon- 
 light Quill and demanded an enormous increase in 
 salary. 
 
254 TALES OF THE JAZZ AGE 
 
 "I've been here ten years," he said; "since I was 
 nineteen. I've always tried to do my best in the in- 
 terests of the business." 
 
 Mr. Moonlight Quill said that he would think it over. 
 Next morning he announced, to Merlin's great delight, 
 that he was going to put into effect a project long pre- 
 meditated — ^he was going to retire from active work in 
 the bookshop, confining himself to periodic visits and 
 leaving Merlin as manager with a salary of fifty dollars 
 a week and a one-tenth interest in the business. When 
 the old man finished, Merlin's cheeks were glowing and 
 his eyes full of tears. He seized his employer's hand and 
 shook it violently, saying over and over again: 
 
 "It's very nice of you, sir. It's very white of you. 
 It's very, very nice of you." 
 
 So after ten years of faithful work in the store he had 
 won out at last. Looking back, he saw his own progress 
 toward this hill of elation no longer as a sometimes 
 sordid and always gray decade of worry and failing en- 
 thusiasm and failing dreams, years when the moonlight 
 had grown duUer in the areaway and the youth had 
 faded out of Olive's face, but as a glorious and trium- 
 phant climb over obstacles which he had determinedly 
 surmounted by unconquerable will-power. The opti- 
 mistic self-delusion that had kept him from misery was 
 seen now in the golden garments of stem resolution. 
 Half a dozen times he had taken steps to leave the Moon- 
 light Quill and soar upward, but through sheer faint- 
 heartedness he had stayed on. Strangely enough he 
 now thought that those were times when he had exerted 
 tremendous persistence and had "determined" to fight 
 it out where he was. 
 
 At any rate, let us not for this moment begrudge 
 Merlin his new and magnificent view of himself. He 
 had arrived. At thirty he had reached a post of im- 
 
"O RUSSET WITCH!" 255 
 
 portance. He left the shop that evening fairly radiant, 
 invested every penny in his pocket in the most tremen- 
 dous feast that Braegdort's delicatessen offered, and 
 staggered homeward with the great news and four gi- 
 gantic paper bags. The fact that Olive was too sick to 
 eat, that he made himself faintly but unmistakably iU 
 by a struggle with four stuffed tomatoes, and that most 
 of the food deteriorated rapidly in an iceless ice-box all 
 next day did not mar the occasion. For the first time 
 since the week of his marriage Merlin Grainger lived 
 under a sky of unclouded tranquillity. 
 
 The baby boy was christened Arthur, and life became 
 dignified, significant, and, at length, centered. Merlin 
 and Olive resigned themselves to a somewhat secondary 
 place in their own cosmos; but what they lost in per- 
 sonality they regained in a sort of primordial pride. 
 The country house did not come, but a month in an 
 Asbury Park boarding-house each summer filled the 
 gap; and during Merlin's two weeks' holiday this excur- 
 sion assumed the air of a really merry jaunt — especially 
 when, with the baby asleep in a wide room opening tech- 
 nically on the sea. Merlin strolled with Olive along the 
 thronged board-walk puffing at his cigar and trying to 
 look like twenty thousand a year. 
 
 With some alarm at the slowing up of the days and 
 the accelerating of the years. Merlin became thirty-one, 
 thirty-two — then almost with a rush arrived at that 
 age which, with all its washing and paiming, can only 
 muster a bare handful of the precious stuff of youth: he 
 became thirty-five. And one day on Fifth Avenue he 
 saw Caroline. 
 
 It was Sunday, a radiant, flowerful Easter morning 
 and the avenue was a pageant of lilies and cutaways 
 and happy April-colored bonnets. Twelve o'clock: the 
 great churches were letting out their people — St. Simon's, 
 
2s6 TALES OF THE JAZZ AGE 
 
 St. Hilda's, the Church of the Epistles, opened their 
 doors like wide mouths until the people pouring forth 
 surely resembled happy laughter as they met and 
 strolled and chattered, or else waved white bouquets at 
 waiting chauffeurs. 
 
 In front of the Church of the Epistles stood its twelve 
 vestrymen, carrying out the time-honored custom of 
 giving away Easter eggs full of face-powder to the 
 church-going debutantes of the year. Around them 
 delightedly danced the two thousand miraculously 
 groomed children of the very rich, correctly cute and 
 curled, shining like sparkling little jewels upon their 
 mothers' fingers. Speaks the sentimentalist for the 
 children of the poor .? Ah, but the children of the rich, 
 laundered, sweet-smelling, complexioned of the country, 
 and, above all, with soft, in-door voices. 
 
 Little Arthur was five, child of the middle class. Un- 
 distinguished, unnoticed, with a nose that forever 
 marred what Grecian yearnings his features might have 
 had, he held tightly to his mother's warm, sticky hand, 
 and, with Merlin on his other side, moved upon the 
 home-coming throng. At Fifty-third Street, where 
 there were two churches, the congestion was at its thick- 
 est, its richest. Their progress was of necessity retarded 
 to such an extent that even little Arthur had not the 
 slightest difficulty in keeping up. Then it was that 
 Merlin perceived an open landatilet of deepest crimson, 
 with handsome nickel trimmings, glide slowly up to 
 the curb and come to a stop. Li it sat Caroline. 
 
 She was dressed in black, a tight-fitting gown trimmed 
 with lavender, flowered at the waist with a corsage of 
 orchids. Merlin started and then gazed at her fear- 
 fully. For the first time in the eight years since his 
 marriage he was encountering the girl again. But a girl 
 no longer. Her figure was slim as ever — or perhaps 
 
"O RUSSET WITCH!" 257 
 
 not quite, for a certain boyish swagger, a sort of in- 
 solent adolescence, had gone the way of the first bloom- 
 ing of her cheeks. But she was beautiful; dignity was 
 there now, and the charming lines of a fortuitous nine- 
 and- twenty; and she sat in the car with such perfect 
 appropriateness and self-possession that it made him 
 breathless to watch her. 
 
 Suddenly she smiled — the smile of old, bright as that 
 very Easter and its flowers, mellower than ever — yet 
 somehow with not quite the radiance and infinite prom- 
 ise of that first smile back there in the bookshop nine 
 years before. It was a steelier smile, disillusioned 
 and sad. 
 
 But it was soft enough and smile enough to make a 
 pair of young men in cutaway coats hurry over, to pull 
 their high hats off their wetted, iridescent hair; to bring 
 them, flustered and bowing, to the edge of her landaulet, 
 where her lavender gloves gently touched their gray 
 ones. And these two were presently joined by another, 
 and then two more, until there was a rapidly swelling 
 crowd around the landaulet. Merlin would hear a 
 young man beside him say to his perhaps well-favored 
 companion: 
 
 " If you'll just pardon me a moment, there's some one 
 I have to speak to. Walk right ahead. I'll catch up." 
 
 Within three minutes every inch of the landaulet, 
 front, back, and side, was occupied by a man — a man 
 trying to construct a sentence clever enough to find, its 
 way to Caroline through the stream of conversation. 
 Luckily for Merlin a portion of little Arthur's clothing 
 had chosen the opportunity to threaten a collapse, and 
 OHve had hurriedly rushed him over against a building 
 for some extemporaneous repair work, so Merlin was 
 able to watch, unhindered, the salon in the street. 
 
 The crowd swelled. A row formed in back of the first. 
 
258 TALES OF THE JAZZ AGE 
 
 two more behind that. In the midst, an orchid rising 
 from a black bouquet, sat Caroline enthroned in her 
 obliterated car, nodding and crying salutations and 
 smiling with such true happiness that, of a sudden, a 
 new relay of gentlemen had left their wives and consorts 
 and were striding toward her. 
 
 The crowd, now phalanx deep, began to be augmented 
 by the merely curious; men of all ages who could not 
 possibly have known Caroline jostled over and melted 
 into the circle of ever-increasing diameter, until the lady 
 in lavender was the centre of a vast impromptu audi- 
 torium. 
 
 All about her were faces — clean-shaven, bewhiskered, 
 old, young, ageless, and now, here and there, a woman. 
 The mass was rapidly spreading to the opposite curb, 
 and, as St. Anthony's around the comer let out its 
 box-holders, it overflowed to the sidewalk and crushed 
 up against the iron picket-fence of a millionaire across 
 the street. The motors speeding along the avenue were 
 compelled to stop, and in a jiffy were piled three, five, 
 and six deep at the edge of the crowd; auto-busses, top- 
 heavy turtles of traf&c, plunged into the jam, their 
 passengers crowding to the edges of the roofs in wild 
 excitement and peering down into the centre of the 
 mass, which presently could hardly be seen from the 
 mass's edge. 
 
 The crush had become terrific. No fashionable audi- 
 ence at a Yale-Princeton football game, no damp mob 
 at a world's series, could be compared with the panoply 
 that talked, stared, laughed, and honked about the 
 lady in black and lavender. It was stupendous; it was 
 terrible. A quarter mile down the block a half-frantic 
 policeman called his precinct; on the same comer a 
 frightened civilian crashed in the glass of a fire-alarm 
 and sent in a wild paean for all the fire-engines of the 
 
"O RUSSET WITCH!" 259 
 
 city; up in an apartment high in one of the tall buildings 
 a hysterical old maid telephoned in turn for the prohibi- 
 tion enforcement agent, the special deputies on Bolshev- 
 ism, and the maternity ward of Bellevue Hospital. 
 
 The noise increased. The first fire-engine arrived, 
 filling the Sunday air with smoke, clanging and crying 
 a brazen, metallic message down the high, resounding 
 walls. In the notion that some terrible calamity had 
 overtaken the city, two excited deacons ordered special 
 services immediately and set tolling the great bells of St. 
 Hilda's and St. Anthony's, presently joined by the jeal- 
 ous gongs of St. Simon's and the Church of the Epistles. 
 Even far off in the Hudson and the East River the sounds 
 of the commotion were heard, and the ferry-boats and 
 tugs and ocean liners set up sirens and whistles that 
 sailed in melancholy cadence, now varied, now reiterated, 
 across the whole diagonal width of the city from River- 
 side Drive to the gray water-fronts of the lower East 
 Side. . . . 
 
 In the centre of her landaulet sat the lady in black 
 and lavender, chatting pleasantly first with one, then 
 with another of that fortunate few in cutaways who had 
 found their way to speaking distance in the first rush. 
 After a while she glanced around her and beside her 
 with a look of growing annoyance. 
 
 She yawned and asked the man nearest her if he 
 couldn't run in somewhere and get her a glass of water. 
 The man apologized in some embarrassment. He could 
 not have moved hand or foot. He could not have 
 scratched his own ear. . . . 
 
 As the first blast of the river sirens keened along the 
 air, Olive fastened the last safety-pin in little Arthur's 
 rompers and looked up. Merlin saw her start, stiffen 
 slowly like hardening stucco, and then give a little gasp 
 of surprise and disapproval. 
 
26o TALES OF THE JAZZ AGE 
 
 "That woman," she cried suddenly. "Oh !" 
 She flashed a glance at Merlin that mingled reproach 
 and pain, and without another word gathered up little 
 Arthur with one hand, grasped her husband by the 
 other, and darted amazingly in a winding, bumping can- 
 ter through the crowd. Somehow people gave way be- 
 fore her; somehow she managed to retain her grasp on 
 her son and husband; somehow she managed to emerge 
 two blocks up, battered and dishevelled, into an open 
 space, and, without slowing up her pace, darted down a 
 side-street. Then at last, when uproar had died away 
 into a dim and distant clamor, did she come to a walk 
 and set little Arthur upon his feet. 
 
 "And on Sunday, too ! Hasn't she disgraced herself 
 enough?" This was her only comment. She said it 
 to Arthur, as she seemed to address her remarks to Arthur 
 throughout the remainder of the day. For some cu- 
 rious and esoteric reason she had never once looked at 
 her husband during the entire retreat. 
 
 IV 
 
 The years between thirty-five and sixty-five revolve 
 before the passive mind as one unexplained, confusing 
 merry-go-round. True, they are a merry-go-round of 
 ill-gaited and wind-broken horses, painted first in pastel 
 colors, then in duU grays and browns, but perplexing 
 and intolerably dizzy the thing is, as never were the 
 merry-go-roimds of childhood or adolescence, as never, 
 surely, were the certain-coursed, dynamic roller-coasters 
 of youth. For most men and women these thirty years 
 are taken'"up with a gradual withdrawal from life, a re- 
 treat first from a front with many shelters, those myriad 
 amusements and curiosities of youth, to a line with less, 
 when we peel down our ambitions to one ambition, our 
 
"O RUSSET WITCH!" 261 
 
 recreations to one recreation, our friends to a few to 
 whom we are anaesthetic; ending up at last in a soK- 
 tary, desolate strong point that is not strong, where the 
 shells now whistle abominably, now are but half-heard 
 as, by turns frightened and tired, we sit waiting for 
 death. 
 
 At forty, then, MerUn was no different from himself 
 at thirty-five; a larger paunch, a gray twinkling near 
 his ears, a more certain lack of vivacity in his walk. 
 His forty-five differed from his forty by a like margin, 
 unless one mention a slight deafness in his left ear. 
 But at fifty-five the process had become a chemical 
 change of immense rapidity. Yearly he was more and 
 more an "old man" to his family — senile almost, so far 
 as his wife was concerned. He was by this time com- 
 plete owner of the bookshop. The mysterious Mr. 
 Moonlight Quill, dead some five years and not survived 
 by his wife, had deeded the whole stock and store to 
 him, and there he still spent his days, conversant now 
 by name with almost aU that man has recorded for three 
 thousand years, a human catalogue, an authority upon 
 tooling and binding, upon folios and first editions, an 
 accurate inventory of a thousand authors whom he could 
 never have understood and had certainly never read. 
 
 At sixty-five he distinctly doddered. He had assumed 
 the melancholy habits of the aged so often portrayed 
 by the second old man in standard Victorian comedies. 
 He consumed vast warehouses of time searching for mis- 
 laid spectacles. He "nagged" his wife and was nagged 
 in turn. He told the same jokes three or four times a 
 year at the family table, and gave his son weird, impossi- 
 ble directions as to his conduct in life. Mentally and 
 materially he was so entirely different from the Merlin 
 Grainger of twenty-five that it seemed incongruous that 
 he should bear the same name. 
 
262 TALES OF THE JAZZ AGE 
 
 He worked still in the bookshop with the assistance 
 of a youth, whom, of course, he considered very idle, 
 indeed, and a new young woman. Miss Gaffney. Miss 
 McCracken, ancient and unvenerable as himself, still 
 kept the accounts. Young Arthur was gone into Wall 
 Street to sell bonds, as all the young men seemed to be 
 doing in that day. This, of course, was as it should be. 
 Let old Merlin get what magic he could from his books — 
 the place of young King Arthur was in the counting- 
 house. 
 
 One afternoon at four when he had slipped noiselessly 
 up to the front of the store on his soft-soled slippers, 
 led by a newly formed habit, of which, to be fair, he 
 was rather ashamed, of spying upon the young man 
 clerk, he looked casually out of the front window, strain- 
 ing his faded eyesight to reach the street. A limousine, 
 large, portentous, impressive, had drawn to the curb, and 
 the chauffeur, after dismounting and holding some sort 
 of conversation with persons in the interior of the car, 
 turned about and advanced in a bewildered fashion 
 toward the entrance of the Moonlight Quill. He opened 
 the door, shuffled in, and, glancing uncertainly at the old 
 man in the skull-cap, addressed him in a thick, murky 
 voice, as though his words came through a fog. 
 
 "Do you — do you sell additions?" 
 
 Merlin nodded. 
 
 "The arithmetic books are in the back of the store." 
 
 The chauffeur took off his cap and scratched a close- 
 cropped, fuzzy head. 
 
 " Oh, naw. This I want's a detecatif story." He jerked 
 a thumb back toward the limousine. "She seen it in 
 the paper. Firs' addition." 
 
 Merlin's interest quickened. Here was possibly a 
 big sale. 
 
 "Oh, editions. Yes, we've advertised some firsts, 
 
"O RUSSET WITCH!" 263 
 
 but — detective stories, I — don't — believe — ^What was the 
 title?" 
 
 "I forget. About a crime." 
 
 "About a crime. I have — ^well, I have 'The Crimes 
 of the Borgias' — full morocco, London 1769, beauti- 
 fuUy " 
 
 "Naw," interrupted the chauffeur, "this was one feUa 
 did this crime. She seen you had it for sale in the 
 paper." He rejected several possible titles with the air 
 of connoisseur. 
 
 "'Silver Bones,'" he announced suddenly out of a 
 slight pause. 
 
 "What ?" demanded Merlin, suspecting that the stiff- 
 ness of his sinews were being commented on. 
 
 "Silver Bones. That was the guy that done the 
 crime." 
 
 "Silver Bones?" 
 
 "Silver Bones. Indian, maybe." 
 
 Merlin stroked his grizzly cheeks. 
 
 "Gees, Mister," went on the prospective purchaser, 
 "if you wanna save me an awful bawlin' out jes' try an' 
 think. The old lady goes wile if everything don't run 
 smooth." 
 
 But Merlin's musings on the subject of Silver Bones 
 were as futile as his obliging search through the shelves, 
 and five minutes later a very dejected charioteer wound 
 his way back to his mistress. Through the glass Merlin 
 could see the visible symbols of a tremendous uproar 
 going on in the interior of the limousine. The chauffeur 
 made wild, appealing gestures of his innocence, evidently, 
 to no avail, for when he turned aroimd and climbed 
 back into the driver's seat his expression was not a little 
 dejected. 
 
 Then the door of the limousine opened and gave forth 
 a pale and slender young man of about twenty, dressed 
 
264 TALES OF THE JAZZ AGE 
 
 in the attenuation of fashion and carrying a wisp of a 
 cane. He entered the shop, walked past Merlin, and 
 proceeded to take out a cigarette and light it. Merlin 
 approached him. 
 
 "Anything I can do for you, sir?" 
 
 "Old boy," said the youth coolly, "there are seveereal 
 things. You can first let me smoke my ciggy in here out 
 of sight of that old lady in the limousine, who happens 
 to be my grandmother. Her knowledge as to whether 
 I smoke it or not before my majority happens to be a 
 matter of five thousand dollars to me. The second thing . 
 is that you should look up your first edition of the 
 'Crime of Sylvester Bonnard' that you advertised in 
 last Sunday's Times. My grandmother there happens 
 to want to take it off your hands." 
 
 Detecatif story ! Crime of somebody ! Silver Bones ! 
 All was explained. With a faint deprecatory chuckle, 
 as if to say that he would have enjoyed this had life 
 put him in the habit of enjoying anything, Merlin dod- 
 dered away to the back of his shop where his treasures 
 were kept, to get this latest investment which he had 
 picked up rather cheaply at the sale of a big collection. 
 
 When he returned with it the young man was drawing 
 on his cigarette and blowing out quantities of smoke 
 with immense satisfaction. 
 
 "My God!" he said. "She keeps me so close to her 
 the entire day running idiotic errands that this happens 
 to be my first puff in six hours. What's the world com- 
 ing to, I ask you, when a feeble old lady in the milk-toast 
 era can dictate to a man as to his personal vices ? I 
 happen to be unwilling to be so dictated to. Let's see 
 the book." 
 
 Merlin passed it to him tenderly and the young man, 
 after opening it with a carelessness that gave a mo- 
 mentary jump to the book-dealer's heart, ran through 
 the pages with his thumb. 
 
"O RUSSET WITCH!" 265 
 
 "No illustrations, eh?" he commented. "Well, old 
 boy, what's it worth? Speak up! We're willing to 
 give you a fair price, though why I don't know." 
 
 "One hundred dollars," said Merlin with a frown. 
 
 The yoimg man gave a startled whistle. 
 
 "Whew! Come on. You're not dealing with some- 
 body from the combelt. I happen to be a city-bred 
 man and my grandmother happens to be a city-bred 
 woman, though I'll admit it'd take a special tax appro- 
 priation to keep her in repair. We'll give you twenty- 
 five dollars, and let me tell you that's liberal. We've 
 got books in our attic, up in our attic with my old play- 
 things, that were written before the old boy that wrote 
 this was bom." 
 
 Merlin stiffened, expressing a rigid and meticulous 
 horror. 
 
 "Did your grandmother give you twenty-five dollars 
 to buy this with ? " 
 
 "She did not. She gave me fifty, but she expects 
 change. I know that old lady." 
 
 "You tell her," said Merlin with dignity, "that she 
 has missed a very great bargain." 
 
 " Give you forty," urged tie young man. " Come on 
 now — be reasonable and don't try to hold us up " 
 
 Merlin had wheeled around with the precious volume 
 under his arm and was about to return it to its special 
 drawer in his office when there was a sudden interrup- 
 tion. With unheard-of magnificence the front door 
 burst rather than swung open, and admitted into the 
 dark interior a regal apparition in black silk and fur 
 which bore rapidly down upon him. The cigarette 
 leaped from the fingers of the urban young man and he 
 gave breath to an inadvertent "Damn!" — but it was 
 upon Merlin that the entrance seemed to have the most 
 remarkable and incongruous effect — so strong an effect 
 that the greatest treasure of his shop slipped from his 
 
266 TALES OF THE JAZZ AGE 
 
 hand and joined the cigarette on the floor. Before him 
 stood Caroline. 
 
 She was an old woman, an old woman remarkably 
 preserved, unusually handsome, unusually erect, but 
 still an old woman. Her hair was a soft, beautiful 
 white, elaborately dressed and jewelled; her face, faintly 
 rouged a la grande dame, showed webs of wrinkles at 
 the edges of her eyes and two deeper lines in the form of 
 stanchions connected her nose with the comers of her 
 mouth. Her eyes were dim, ill natured, and querulous. 
 
 But it was Caroline without a doubt: Caroline's fea- 
 tures though in decay; Caroline's figure, if brittle and 
 stiff in movement; Caroline's manner, unmistakably 
 compounded of a delightful insolence and an enviable 
 self assurance; and, most of all, Caroline's voice, broken 
 and shaky, yet with a ring in it that still could and did 
 make chauffeurs want to drive laundry wagons and 
 cause cigarettes to fall from the fingers of urban grand- 
 sons. 
 
 She stood and sniffed. Her eyes found the cigarette 
 upon the floor. 
 
 "What's that?" she cried. The words were not a 
 question — they were an entire litany of suspicion, accu- 
 sation, confirmation, and decision. She tarried over 
 them scarcely an instant. "Stand up !" she said to her 
 grandson, "stand up and blow that nicotine out of your 
 lungs!" 
 
 The young man looked at her in trepidation. 
 
 "Blow!" she commanded. 
 
 He pursed his lips feebly and blew into the air. 
 
 "Blow !" she repeated, more peremptorily than before. 
 
 He blew again, helplessly, ridiculously. 
 
 "Do you realize," she went on briskly, "that you've 
 forfeited five thousand dollars in five minutes ? " 
 
 Merlin momentarily expected the young man to faU 
 
"0 RUSSET WITCH!" 267 
 
 pleading upon his knees, but such is the nobility of hu- 
 man nature that he remained standing — even blew 
 again into the air, partly from nervousness, partly, no 
 doubt, with some vague hope of reingratiating him- 
 self. 
 
 "Young ass!" cried Caroline. "Once more, just 
 once more and you leave college and go to work." 
 
 This threat had such an overwhelming effect upon 
 the young man that he took on an even paler pallor than 
 was natural to him. But Caroline was not through. 
 
 "Do you think I don't know what you and your 
 brothers, yes, and your asinine father too, think of me ? 
 Well, I do. You think I'm senile. You think I'm 
 soft. I'm not!" She struck herself with her fist as 
 though to prove that she was a mass of muscle and 
 sinew. "And I'll have more brains left when you've 
 got me laid out in the drawing-room some sunny day 
 than you and the rest of them were bom with." 
 
 "But Grandmother " 
 
 "Be quiet. You, a thin little stick of a boy, who if it 
 weren't for my money might have risen to be a journey- 
 man barber out in the Bronx — ^Let me see your hands. 
 Ugh ! The hands of a barber — you presume to be smart 
 with me, who once had three counts and a bona-fide duke, 
 not to mention half a dozen papal titles pursue me from 
 the city of Rome to the city of New York." She paused, 
 took breath. " Stand up ! Blow ! " 
 
 The young man obediently blew. Simultaneously 
 the door opened and an excited gentleman of middle age 
 who wore a coat and hat trimmed with fur, and seemed, 
 moreover, to be trimmed with the same sort of fur him- 
 self on upper lip and chin, rushed into the store and up 
 to Caroline. 
 
 "Found you at last," he cried. "Been looking for 
 you all over town. Tried your house on the 'phone and 
 
268 TALES OF THE JAZZ AGE 
 
 your secretary told me he thought you'd gone to a book- 
 shop called the Moonlight " 
 
 Caroline turned to him irritably. 
 
 "Do I employ you for your reminiscences?" she 
 snapped. "Are you my tutor or my broker ?" 
 
 "Your broker," confessed the fur- trimmed man, taken 
 somewhat aback. "I beg your pardon. I came about 
 that phonograph stock. I can sell for a hundred and 
 five." 
 
 "Then do it." 
 
 "Very well. I thought I'd better " 
 
 " Go sell it. I'm talking to my grandson." 
 
 "VeryweU. I " 
 
 "Good-by." 
 
 "Good-by, Madame." The fur-trimmed man made 
 a slight bow and hurried in some confusion from the 
 shop. 
 
 "As for you," said Caroline, turning to her grandson, 
 "you stay just where you are and be quiet." 
 
 She turned to Merlin and included his entire length 
 in a not unfriendly survey. Then she smiled and he 
 found himself smiling too. In an instant they had both 
 broken into a cracked but none the less spontaneous 
 chuckle. She seized his arm and hurried him to the 
 other side of the store. There they stopped, faced each 
 other, and gave vent to another long fit of senile glee. 
 
 "It's the only way," she gasped in a sort of triumphant 
 malignity. "The only thing that keeps old folks like 
 me happy is the sense that they can make other people 
 step around. To be old and rich and have poor de- 
 scendants is almost as much fun as to be yoxmg and 
 beautiful and have ugly sisters." 
 
 " Oh, yes," chuckled Merlin. " I know. I envy you." 
 
 She nodded, blinking. 
 
 "The last time I was in here, forty years ago," she 
 
"0 RUSSET WITCH!" 269 
 
 said, "you were a young man very anxious to kick up 
 your heels." 
 
 "I was," he confessed. 
 
 " My visit must have meant a good deal to you." 
 
 "You have aU along," he exclaimed. "I thought — I 
 used to think at first that you were a real person — 
 human, I mean." 
 
 She laughed. 
 
 "Many men have thought me inhuman." 
 
 "But now," continued Merlin excitedly, "I under- 
 stand. Understanding is allowed to us old people — 
 after nothing much matters. I see now that on a cer- 
 tain night when you danced upon a table-top you were 
 nothing but my romantic yearning for a beautiful and 
 perverse woman." 
 
 Her old eyes were far away, her voice no more than 
 the echo of a forgotten dream. 
 
 "How I danced that night! I remember." 
 
 "You were making an attempt at me. Olive's arms 
 were closing about me and you warned me to be free and 
 keep my measure of youth and irresponsibility. But 
 it seemed like an effect gotten up at the last moment. 
 It came too late." 
 
 "You are very old," she said inscrutably. "I did not 
 realize." 
 
 "Also I have not forgotten what you did to me when 
 I was thirty-five. You shook me with that traffic tie-up. 
 It was a magnificent effort. The beauty and power you 
 radiated ! You became personified even to my wife, and 
 she feared you. For weeks I wanted to slip out of the 
 house at dark and forget the stuffiness of life with music 
 and cocktails and a girl to make me young. But then 
 — ^I no longer knew how." 
 
 "And now you are so very old." 
 
 With a sort of awe she moved back and away from him. 
 
270 TALES OF THE JAZZ AGE 
 
 "Yes, leave me!" he cried. "You are old also; the 
 spirit withers with the skin. Have you come here only 
 to tell me something I had best forget: that to be old 
 and poor is perhaps more wretched than to be old and 
 rich; to remind me that my son hurls my gray failure in 
 my face?" 
 
 "Give me my book," she commanded harshly. "Be 
 quick, old man!" 
 
 Merlin looked at her once more and then patiently 
 obeyed. He picked up the book and handed it to her, 
 shaking his head when she offered him a bill. 
 
 "Why go through the farce of paying me? Once 
 you made me wreck these very premises." 
 
 "I did," she said in anger, "and I'm glad. Perhaps 
 there had been enough done to ruin me." 
 
 She gave him a glance, half disdain, half ill-concealed 
 uneasiness, and with a brisk word to her urban grandson 
 moved toward the door. 
 
 Then she was gone — out of his shop — out of his life. 
 The door clicked. With a sigh he turned and walked 
 brokenly back toward the glass partition that enclosed 
 the yellowed accounts of many years as well as the mel- 
 lowed, wrinkled Miss McCracken. 
 
 Merlin regarded her parched, cobwebbed face with 
 an odd sort of pity. She, at any rate, had had less from 
 life than he. No rebellious, romantic spirit cropping out 
 unbidden had, in its memorable moments, given her life 
 a zest and a glory. 
 
 Then Miss McCracken looked up and spoke to him: 
 
 " Still a spunky old piece, isn't she ? " 
 
 Merlin started. 
 
 "Who?" 
 
 "Old Alicia Dare. Mrs. Thomas AUerdyce she is 
 now, of course; has been these thirty years." 
 
 "What ? I don't understand you." Merlin sat down 
 suddenly in his swivel chair; his eyes were wide. 
 
"O RUSSET WITCH!" 271 
 
 "^Why, surely, Mr. Grainger, you can't tell me that 
 you've forgotten her, when for ten years she was the 
 most notorious character in New York. Why, one time 
 when she was the corespondent in the Throckmorton 
 divorce case she attracted so much attention on Fifth 
 Avenue that there was a traffic tie-up. Didn't you read 
 about it in the papers." 
 
 " I never used to read the papers." His ancient brain 
 was whirring. 
 
 "Well, you can't have forgotten the time she came in 
 here and ruined the business. Let me tell you I came 
 near asking Mr. Moonlight Quill for my salary, and 
 clearing out." 
 
 "Do you mean that — that you saw her ?" 
 
 "Saw her! How could I help it with the racket 
 that went on. Heaven knows Mr. Moonlight Quill 
 didn't like it either, but of course he didn't say anything. 
 He was daffy about her and she could twist him around 
 her little finger. The second he opposed one of her whims 
 she'd threaten to tell his wife on him. Served him right. 
 The idea of that man falling for a pretty adventuress ! 
 Of course he was never rich enough for her, even though 
 the shop paid well in those days." 
 
 "But when I saw her," stammered Merlin, "that is, 
 when I thought I saw her, she lived with her mother." 
 
 "Mother, trash!" said Miss McCracken indignantly. 
 "She had a woman there she called 'Aunty' who was no 
 more related to her than I am. Oh, she was a bad one 
 — but clever. Right after the Throckmorton divorce 
 case she married Thomas Allerdyce, and made herself 
 secure for life." 
 
 "Who was she ?" cried Merlin. "For God's sake what 
 was she — a witch?" 
 
 "Why, she was Alicia Dare, the dancer, of course. 
 In those days you couldn't pick up a paper without find- 
 ing her picture." 
 
272 TALES OF THE JAZZ AGE 
 
 Merlin sat very quiet, his brain suddenly fatigued 
 and stilled. He was an old man now indeed, so old that 
 it was impossible for him to dream of ever having been 
 young, so old that the glamour was gone out of the world, 
 passing not into the faces of children and into the per- 
 sistent comforts of warmth and life, but passing out of 
 the range of sight and feeling. He was never to smile 
 again or to sit in a long reverie when spring evenings 
 wafted the cries of children ia at his window until grad- 
 ually they became the friends of his boyhood out there, 
 urging him to come and play before the last dark came 
 down. He was too old now even for memories. 
 
 That night he sat at supper with his wife and son, who 
 had used him for their blind purposes. Olive said: 
 
 "Don't sit there like a death's-head. Say something." 
 
 "Let him sit quiet," growled Arthur. "If you en- 
 courage him he'll tell us a story we've heard a hundred 
 times before." 
 
 Merlin went up-stairs very quietly at nine o'clock. 
 When he was in his room and had closed the door tight 
 he stood by it for a moment, his thin limbs trembling. 
 He knew now that he had always been a fool. 
 
 "O Russet Witch!" 
 
 But it was too late. He had angered Providence by 
 resisting too many temptations. There was nothing 
 left but heaven, where he would meet only those who, 
 like him, had wasted earth. 
 
UNCLASSIFIED MASTERPIECES 
 
THE LEES OF HAPPINESS 
 
 If you should look through the files of old magazines 
 for the first years of the present century you would find, 
 sandwiched in between the stories of Richard Harding 
 Davis and Frank Norris and others long since dead, 
 the work of one Jeffrey Curtain: a novel or two, and per- 
 haps three or four dozen short stories. You could, if 
 you were interested, follow them along until, say, 1908, 
 when they suddenly disappeared. 
 
 When you had read them all you would have been 
 quite sure that here were no masterpieces — ^here were 
 passably amusing stories, a bit out of date now, but 
 doubtless the sort that would then have whiled away a 
 dreary half hour in a dental ofi&ce. The man who did 
 them was of good intelligence, talented, glib, probably 
 yovuig. In the samples of his work you found there 
 would have been nothing to stir you to more than a faint 
 interest in the whims of life — ^no deep interior laughs, 
 no sense of futility or hint of tragedy. 
 
 After reading them you would yawn and put the num- 
 ber back in the files, and perhaps, if you were in some 
 library reading-room, you would decide that by way of 
 variety you would look at a newspaper of the period 
 and see whether the Japs had taken Port Arthur. But 
 if by any chance the newspaper you had chosen was the 
 right one and had crackled open at the theatrical page, 
 your eyes would have been arrested and held, and for at 
 least a minute you would have forgotten Port Arthur 
 as quickly as you forgot Chiteau Thierry. For you 
 would, by this fortunate chance, be looking at the por- 
 trait of an exquisite woman. 
 
 27s 
 
276 TALES OF THE JAZZ AGE 
 
 Those were the days of "Florodora" and of sextets, of 
 pinched-in waists and blown-out sleeves, of almost 
 bustles and absolute ballet skirts, but here, without 
 doubt, disguised as she might be by the unaccustomed 
 stiffness and old fashion of her costume, was a butterfly 
 of butterflies. Here was the gayety of the period — the 
 soft wine of eyes, the songs that flurried hearts, the toasts 
 and the bouquets, the dances and the dinners. Here 
 was a Venus of the hansom cab, the Gibson girl in her 
 glorious prime. Here was . . . 
 
 . . . here was, you find by looking at the name be- 
 neath, one Roxanne Milbank, who had been chorus girl 
 and understudy in "The Daisy Chain," but who, by 
 reason of an excellent performance when the star was 
 indisposed, had gained a leading part. 
 
 You would look again — and wonder. Why you had 
 never heard of her. Why did her name not linger in 
 popular songs and vaudeville jokes and cigar bands, and 
 the memory of that gay old uncle of yours along with 
 LiUian Russell and SteUa Mayhew and Anna Held? 
 Roxanne Milbank — ^whither had she gone ? What dark 
 trap-door had opened suddenly and swallowed her up ? 
 Her name was certainly not in last Sunday's supplement 
 on that list of actresses married to English noblemen. 
 No doubt she was dead — ^poor beautiftil young lady — 
 and quite forgotten. 
 
 I am hoping too much. I am having you stumble on 
 Jeffrey Curtain's stories and Roxanne Milbank's pic- 
 ture. It would be incredible that you should find a 
 newspaper item six months later, a single item two inches 
 by four, which informed the public of the marriage, very 
 quietly, of Miss Roxanne Milbank, who had been on tour 
 with "The Daisy Chain," to Mr. Jeffrey Curtain, the 
 popular author. "Mrs. Curtain," it added dispas- 
 sionately, "will retire from the stage." 
 
THE LEES OF HAPPINESS 277 
 
 It was a marriage of love. He was sujB&dently spoiled 
 to be charming; she was ingenuous enough to be ir- 
 resistible. Like two floating logs they met in a head-on 
 rush, caught, and sped along together. Yet had Jeffrey 
 Curtain kept at scrivening for twoscore years he could 
 not have put a quirk into one of his stories weirder than 
 the quirk that came into his own hfe. Had Roxanne 
 Milbank played three dozen parts and filled five thou- 
 sand houses she could never have had a role with more 
 happiness and more despair than were in the fate pre- 
 pared for Roxanne Curtain. 
 
 For a year they lived in hotels, travelled to California, 
 to Alaska, to Florida, to Mexico, loved and quarrelled 
 gently, and gloried in the golden triflings of his wit with 
 her beauty — they were young and gravely passionate; 
 they demanded everything and then yielded everything 
 again in ecstasies of unselfishness and pride. She loved 
 the swift tones of his voice and his frantic, unfounded 
 jealousy. He loved her dark radiance, the white irises 
 of her eyes, the warm, lustrous enthusiasm of her smile. 
 
 "Don't you like her?" he would demand rather ex- 
 citedly and shyly. "Isn't she wonderful ? Did you ever 
 see " 
 
 "Yes," they would answer, grinning. "She's a won- 
 der. You're lucky." 
 
 The year passed. They tired of hotels. They bought 
 an old house and twenty acres near the town of Mar- 
 lowe, half an hour from Chicago; bought a little car, 
 and moved out riotously with a pioneering hallucination 
 that would have confounded Balboa. 
 
 "Your room will be here !" they cried in turn. 
 
 — ^And then: 
 
 "And my room here !" 
 
 "And the nursery here when we have children." 
 
 "And we'll build a sleeping porch — oh, next year." 
 
278 TALES OF THE JAZZ AGE 
 
 They moved out in April. In July Jeffrey's closest 
 friend, Harry Cromwell, came to spend a week — they 
 met him at the end of the long lawn and hurried him 
 proudly to the house. 
 
 Harry was married also. His wife had had a baby 
 some six months before and was still recuperating at her 
 mother's in New York. Roxanne had gathered from 
 Jeffrey that Harry's wife was not as attractive as Harry 
 — ^Jeffrey had met her once and considered her — "shal- 
 low." But Harry had been married nearly two years 
 and was apparently happy, so Jeffrey guessed that she 
 was probably all right . . . 
 
 "I'm making biscuits," chattered Roxanne gravely, 
 "Can your wife make biscuits? The cook is showing 
 me how. I think every woman should know how to 
 make biscuits. It sounds so utterly disarming. A 
 woman who can make biscuits can surely do no " 
 
 "You'll have to come out here and live," said Jeffrey. 
 "Get a place out in the coimtry like us, for you and 
 Kitty." 
 
 "You don't know Kitty. She hates the country. She's 
 got to have her theatres and vaudevilles." 
 
 "Bring her out," repeated Jeffrey. "We'll have a 
 colony. There's an awfully nice crowd here already. 
 Bring her out!" 
 
 They were at the porch steps now and Roxanne made 
 a brisk gesture toward a dilapidated structure on the 
 right. 
 
 "The garage," she announced. "It will also be Jef- 
 frey's writing-room within the month. Meanwhile din- 
 ner is at seven. Meanwhile to that I will mix a cocktail." 
 
 The two men ascended to the second floor — that is, 
 they ascended half-way, for at the first landing Jeffrey 
 dropped his guest's suitcase and in a cross between a 
 query and a cry exclaimed: 
 
THE LEES OF HAPPINESS 279 
 
 "For God's sake, Harry, how do you like her?" 
 
 "We will go up-stairs," answered his guest, "and we 
 will shut the door." 
 
 Half an hour later as they were sitting together in the 
 library Roxanne reissued from the kitchen, bearing be- 
 fore her a pan of biscuits. Jeffrey and Harry rose. 
 
 "They're beautiful, dear," said the husband, intensely. 
 
 "Exquisite," murmured Harry. 
 
 Roxanne beamed. 
 
 "Taste one. I couldn't bear to touch them before 
 you'd seen them aU and I can't bear to take them back 
 imtil I find what they taste like." 
 
 "Like manna, darling." 
 
 Simxiltaneously the two men raised the biscuits to 
 their lips, nibbled tentatively. Simultaneously they 
 tried to change the subject. But Roxanne, undeceived, 
 set down the pan and seized a biscuit. After a second 
 her comment rang out with lugubrious finality: 
 
 "Absolutely bum!" 
 
 "Really " 
 
 "Why, I didn't notice " 
 
 Roxanne roared. 
 
 "Oh, I'm useless," she cried laughing. "Turn me out, 
 Jeffrey — I'm a parasite; I'm no good " 
 
 Jeffrey put his arm around her. 
 
 "Darling, I'll eat your biscuits." 
 
 "They're beautiful, anyway," insisted Roxanne. 
 
 "They're — they're decorative," suggested Harry. 
 
 Jeffrey took him up wildly. 
 
 "That's the word. They're decorative; they're mas- 
 terpieces. We'll use them." 
 
 He rushed to the kitchen and returned with a hammer 
 and a handful of nails. 
 
 "We'll use them, by golly, Roxanne! We'll make a 
 frieze out of them." 
 
28o TALES OF THE JAZZ AGE 
 
 "Don't!" wailed Roxanne. "Our beautiful house." 
 
 "Never mind. We're going to have the library re- 
 papered in October, Don't you remember ? " 
 
 "Well " 
 
 Bang! The first biscuit was impaled to the wall, 
 where it quivered for a moment like a live thing. 
 
 Bang! . . . 
 
 When Roxanne returned with a second round of cock- 
 tails the biscuits were in a perpendicular row, twelve of 
 them, like a collection of primitive spear-heads. 
 
 "Roxanne," exclaimed JeiTrey, "you're an artist! 
 Cook ? — ^nonsense ! You shall illustrate my books ! " 
 
 During dinner the twilight faltered into dusk, and later 
 it was a starry dark outside, filled and permeated with 
 the frail gorgeousness of Roxanne's white dress and her 
 tremulous, low laugh. 
 
 — Such a little girl she is, thought Harry. Not as old 
 as Kitty. 
 
 He compared the two. Elitty — ^nervous without be- 
 ing sensitive, temperamental without temperament, 
 a woman who seemed to flit and never light — and Rox- 
 anne, who was as young as spring night, and summed up 
 in her own adolescent laughter. 
 
 — ^A good match for Jeffrey, he thought again. Two 
 very young people, the sort who'll stay very young until 
 they suddenly find themselves old. 
 
 Harry thought these things between his constant 
 thoughts about Kitty. He was depressed about Kitty. 
 It seemed to him that she was well enough to come back 
 to Chicago and bring his little son. He was thinking 
 vaguely of Kitty when he said good-night to his friend's 
 wife and his friend at the foot of the stairs. 
 
 "You're our first real house guest," called Roxanne 
 after him. "Aren't you thrilled and proud ?" 
 
 When he was out of sight around the stair comer she 
 
THE LEES OF HAPPINESS 281 
 
 turned to Jeffrey, who was standing beside her resting 
 
 his hand on the end of the banister. 
 "Are you tired, my dearest?" 
 
 Jeffrey rubbed the centre of his forehead with his fingers. 
 "A little. How did you know ?" 
 "Oh, how could I help knowing about you?" 
 "It's a headache," he said moodily. " Splitting. I'll 
 
 take some aspirin." 
 She reached over and snapped out the light, and with 
 
 his arm tight about her waist they walked up the stairs 
 
 together. 
 
 n 
 
 Harry's week passed. They drove about the dream- 
 ing lanes or idled in cheerful inanity upon lake or lawn. 
 In the evening Roxanne, sitting inside, played to them 
 while the ashes whitened on the glowing ends of their 
 cigars. Then came a telegram from Kitty saying that 
 she wanted Harry to come East and get her, so Rox- 
 anne and Jeffrey were left alone in that privacy of which 
 they never seemed to tire. 
 
 "Alone" thrilled them again. They wandered about 
 the house, each feeling intimately the presence of the 
 other; they sat on the same side of the table like honey- 
 mooners; they were intensely absorbed, intensely happy. 
 
 The town of Marlowe, though a comparatively old 
 settlement, had only recently acquired a "society." 
 Five or six years before, alarmed at the smoky swelling 
 of Chicago, two or three young married couples, "bun- 
 galow people," had moved out; their friends had followed. 
 The Jeffrey Curtains found an already formed "set" pre- 
 pared to welcome them; a country club, ballroom, and 
 golf links yawned for them, and there were bridge parties, 
 and poker parties, and parties where they drank beer, 
 and parties where they drank nothing at all. 
 
282 TALES OF THE JAZZ AGE 
 
 It was at a poker party that they found themselves a 
 ■week after Harry's departure. There were two tables, 
 and a good proportion of the young wives were smoking 
 and shouting their bets, and being very daringly mannish 
 for those days. 
 
 Roxanne had left the game early and taken to per- 
 ambulation; she wandered into the pantry and found 
 herself some grape Juice — beer gave her a headache — 
 and then passed from table to table, looking over shoul- 
 ders at the hands, keeping an eye on Jeffrey and being 
 pleasantly unexcited and content. Jeffrey, with intense 
 concentration, was raising a pile of chips of all colors, 
 and Roxanne knew by the deepened wrinkle between his 
 eyes that he was interested. She liked to see him in- 
 terested in small things. 
 
 She crossed over quietly and sat down on the arm of 
 his chair. 
 
 She sat there five minutes, listening to the sharp inter- 
 mittent comments of the men and the chatter of the 
 women, which rose from the table like soft smoke — and 
 yet scarcely hearing either. Then quite innocently she 
 reached out her hand, intending to place it on Jeffrey's 
 shoulder — as it touched him he started of a sudden, 
 gave a short grunt, and, sweeping back his arm furious- 
 ly, caught her a glancing blow on her elbow. 
 
 There was a general gasp. Roxanne regained her 
 balance, gave a little cry, and rose quickly to her feet. 
 It had been the greatest shock of her life. This, from 
 Jeffrey, the heart of kindness, of consideration — this 
 instinctively brutal gesture. 
 
 The gasp became a silence. A dozen eyes were turned 
 on Jeffrey, who looked up as though seeing Roxanne for 
 the first time. An expression of bewilderment settled 
 on his face. 
 
 "Why — Roxanne " he said haltingly. 
 
THE LEES OF HAPPINESS 283 
 
 Into a dozen minds entered a quick suspicion, a rumor 
 of scandal. Could it be that behind the scenes with 
 this couple, apparently so in love, lurked some curious 
 antipathy? Why else this streak of fire across such a 
 cloudless heaven ? 
 
 "Jeffrey!" — Roxanne's voice was pleading — startled 
 and horrified, she yet knew that it was a mistake. Not 
 once did it occur to her to blame him or to resent it. 
 Her word was a trembling supplication — "Tell me, 
 Jeffrey," it said, "tell Roxanne, your own Roxanne." 
 
 "Why, Roxanne — " began Jeffrey again. The be- 
 wildered look changed to pain. He was clearly as 
 startled as she. "I didn't intend that," he went on; 
 "you startled me. You — I felt as if some one were at- 
 tacking me. I — ^how — why, how idiotic ! " 
 
 " Jeffrey ! " Again the word was a prayer, incense 
 offered up to a high God through this new and unfathom- 
 able darkness. 
 
 They were both on their feet, they were saying good- 
 by, faltering, apologizing, explaining. There was no 
 attempt to pass it off easily. That way lay sacrilege. 
 Jeffrey had not been feeling well, they said. He had 
 become nervous. Back of both their minds was the 
 unexplained horror of that blow — the marvel that there 
 had been for an instant something between them — ^his 
 anger and her fear — and now to both a sorrow, mo- 
 mentary, no doubt, but to be bridged at once, at once, 
 while there was yet time. Was that swift water lashing 
 under their feet — the fierce glint of some uncharted 
 chasm ? 
 
 Out in their car under the harvest moon he talked 
 brokenly. It was just — ^incomprehensible to him, he 
 said. He had been thinking of the poker game — ab- 
 sorbed — and the touch on his shoulder had seemed like 
 an attack. An attack ! He clung to that word, flung 
 
284 TALES OF THE JAZZ AGE 
 
 it up as a shield. He had hated what touched him. 
 With the impact of his hand it had gone, that — ^nervous- 
 ness. That was all he knew. 
 
 Both their eyes filled with tears and they whispered 
 love there under the broad night as the serene streets of 
 Marlowe sped by. Later, when they went to bed, they 
 were quite calm. Jeffrey was to take a week off aU 
 work — was simply to loll, and sleep, and go on long 
 walks until this nervousness left him. When they had 
 decided this safety settled down upon Roxanne. The 
 pillows underhead became soft and friendly; the bed on 
 which they lay seemed wide, and white, and sturdy be- 
 neath the radiance that streamed in at the window. 
 
 Five days later, in the first cool of late afternoon, 
 Jeffrey picked up an oak chair and sent it crashing 
 through his own front window. Then he lay down on 
 the couch like a child, weeping piteously and begging 
 to die. A blood dot the size of a marble had broken 
 in his brain. 
 
 m 
 
 There is a sort of waking nightmare that sets in some- 
 times when one has missed a sleep or two, a feeling that 
 comes with extreme fatigue and a new sun, that the 
 quality of the life around has changed. It is a fully 
 articulate conviction that somehow the existence one 
 is then leading is a branch shoot of life and is related 
 to life only as a moving picture or a mirror — that the 
 people, and streets, and houses are only projections 
 from a very dim and chaotic past. It was in such a 
 state that Roxanne found herself during the first months 
 of Jeffrey's illness. She slept only when she was ut- 
 terly exhausted; she awoke under a cloud. The long, 
 sober-voiced consultations, the faint aura of medicine 
 
THE LEES OF HAPPINESS 285 
 
 in the halls, the sudden tiptoeing in a house that had 
 echoed to many cheerful footsteps, and, most of all, 
 JefiFrey's white face amid the pillows of the bed they 
 had shared — these things subdued her and made her in- 
 delibly older. The doctors held out hope, but that was 
 all. A long rest, they said, and quiet. So responsibil- 
 ity came to Roxanne. It was she who paid the bills, 
 pored over his bank-book, corresponded with his pub- 
 lishers. She was in the kitchen constantly. She learned 
 from the nurse how to prepare his meals and after the 
 first month took complete charge of the sick-room. 
 She had had to let the nurse go for reasons of economy. 
 One of the two colored girls left at the same time. 
 Roxanne was realizing that they had been living from 
 short story to short story. 
 
 The most frequent visitor was Harry Cromwell. He 
 had been shocked and depressed by the news, and though 
 his wife was now living with him in Chicago he found 
 time to come out several times a month. Roxanne found 
 his sympathy welcome — there was some quality of suf- 
 fering in the man, some inherent pitifulness that made 
 her comfortable when he was near. Roxanne's nature 
 had suddenly deepened. She felt sometimes that with 
 Jeffrey she was losing her children also, those children 
 that now most of all she needed and should have had. 
 
 It was six months after Jeffrey's collapse and when the 
 nightmare had faded, leaving not the old world but a 
 new one, grayer and colder, that she went to see Harry's 
 wife. Finding herself in Chicago with an extra hour 
 before train time, she decided out of courtesy to call. 
 
 As she stepped inside the door she had an immediate 
 impression that the apartment was very like some 
 place she had seen before — and almost instantly she 
 remembered a round-the-corner bakery of her child- 
 hood, a bakery full of rows and rows of pink frosted 
 
286 TALES OF THE JAZZ AGE 
 
 cakes — a stuffy pink, pink as a food, pink triumphant, 
 vxilgar, and ocHous. 
 
 And this apartment was like that. It was pink. It 
 smelled pink ! 
 
 Mrs. Cromwell, attired in a wrapper of pink and black, 
 opened the door. Her hair was yellow, heightened, 
 Roxanne imagined, by a dash of peroxide in the rinsing 
 water every week. Her eyes were a thin waxen blue 
 — she was pretty and too consciously graceful. Her 
 cordiality was strident and intimate, hostility melted 
 so quickly to hospitality that it seemed they were both 
 merely in the face and voice — never touching nor 
 touched by the deep core of egotism beneath. 
 
 But to Roxanne these things were secondary; her 
 eyes were caught and held in uncanny fascination by 
 the wrapper. It was vilely unclean. From its lowest 
 hem up four inches it was sheerly dirty with the blue 
 dust of the floor; for the next three inches it was gray — 
 then it shaded off into its natural color, which was — 
 pink. It was dirty at the sleeves, too, and at the col- 
 lar — and when the woman turned to lead the way into 
 the parlor, Roxanne was sure that her neck was dirty. 
 
 A one-sided rattle of conversation began. Mrs. 
 Cromwell became explicit about her likes and dislikes, 
 her head, her stomach, her teeth, her apartment — avoid- 
 ing with a sort of insolent meticulousness any inclusion 
 of Roxanne with life, as if presuming that Roxanne, 
 having been dealt a blow, wished life to be carefully 
 skirted. 
 
 Roxanne smiled. That kimono! That neck! 
 
 After five minutes a little boy toddled into the par- 
 lor — a dirty little boy clad in dirty pink rompers. His 
 face was smudgy — Roxanne wanted to take him into 
 her lap and wipe his nose; other parts in the vicinity of 
 his head needed attention, his tiny shoes were kicked 
 out at the toes. Unspeakable ! 
 
THE LEES OF HAPPINESS 287 
 
 "What a darling little boy!" exclaimed Roxanne, 
 smQing radiantly. "Come here to me." 
 
 Mrs. Cromwell looked coldly at her son. 
 
 "Kewill get dirty. Look at that face ! " She held her 
 head on one side and regarded it critically. 
 
 "Isn't he a darling ?" repeated Roxanne. 
 
 "Look at his rompers," frowned Mrs. Cromwell. 
 
 "He needs a change, don't you, George?" 
 
 George stared at her curiously. To his mind the word 
 rompers connotated a garment extraneously smeared, 
 as this one. 
 
 "I tried to make him look respectable this morning," 
 complained Mrs. Cromwell as one whose patience had 
 been sorely tried, "and I found he didn't have any 
 more rompers — so rather than have him go round with- 
 out any I put him back in those — and his face " 
 
 "How many pairs has he?" Roxanne 's voice was 
 pleasantly curious. "How many feather fans have 
 you ?" she might have asked. 
 
 "Oh, " Mrs. Cromwell considered, wrinkling her 
 
 pretty brow. "Five, I think. Plenty, I know." 
 
 "You can get them for fifty cents a pair." 
 
 Mrs. Cromwell's eyes showed surprise — and the faint- 
 est superiority. The price of rompers ! 
 
 " Can you really ? I had no idea. He ought to have 
 plenty, but I haven't had a minute all week to send the 
 laundiy out." Then, dismissing the subject as irrele- 
 vant — " I must show you some things " 
 
 They rose and Roxanne followed her past an open 
 bathroom door whose garment-littered floor showed in- 
 deed that the laundry hadn't been sent out for some 
 time, into another room that was, so to speak, the 
 quintessence of pinkness. This was Mrs. Cromwell's 
 room. 
 
 Here^the hostess opened a closet door and displayed 
 before Roxanne's eyes an amazing collection of lingerie. 
 
288 TALES OF THE JAZZ AGE 
 
 There were dozens of filmy marvels of lace and silk, all 
 clean, unruffled, seemingly not yet touched. On hangers 
 beside them were three new evening dresses. 
 
 "I have some beautiful things," said Mrs. Cromwell, 
 " but not much of a chance to wear them. Harry doesn't 
 care about going out." Spite crept into her voice. 
 "He's perfectly content to let me play nursemaid and 
 housekeeper all day and loving wife in the evening." 
 
 Roxanne smiled again. 
 
 "You've got some beautiful clothes here." 
 
 "Yes, I have. Let me show you " 
 
 "Beautiful," repeated Roxanne, interrupting, "but 
 I'll have to nm if I'm going to catch my train." 
 
 She felt that her hands were trembling. She wanted 
 to put them on this woman and shake her — shake her. 
 She wanted her locked up somewhere and set to scrub- 
 bing floors. 
 
 "Beautiful," she repeated, "and I just came in for a 
 moment." 
 
 "Well, I'm sorry Harry isn't here." 
 
 They moved toward the door. 
 
 " — and, oh," said Roxanne with an effort — ^yet her 
 voice was still gentle and her lips were smiling — "I 
 think it's Argile's where you can get those rompers. 
 Good-by." 
 
 It was not until she had reached the station and bought 
 her ticket to Marlowe that Roxanne realized it was the 
 first five minutes in six months that her mind had been 
 off Jeffrey. 
 
 IV 
 
 A week later Harry appeared at Marlowe, arrived 
 imexpectedly at five o'clock, and coming up the walk 
 sank into a porch chair in a state of exhaustion. Rox- 
 anne herself had had a busy day and weis worn out. The 
 
THE LEES OF HAPPINESS 289 
 
 doctors were coming at five-thirty, bringing a celebrated 
 nerve specialist from New York. She was excited and 
 thoroughly depressed, but Harry's eyes made her sit 
 down beside him. 
 
 "What's the matter?" 
 
 "Nothing, Roxanne," he denied. "I came to see 
 how Jeff was doing. Don't you bother about me." 
 
 "Harry," insisted Roxaime, "there's something the 
 matter." 
 
 " Nothing," he repeated. "How's Jeff ? " 
 
 Anxiety darkened her face. 
 
 "He's a little worse, Harry. Doctor Jewett has 
 come on from New York. They thought he could tell 
 me something definite. He's going to try and find 
 whether this paralysis has anything to do with the origi- 
 nal blood clot." 
 
 Harry rose. 
 
 "Oh, I'm sorry," he said jerkily. "I didn't know 
 you expected a consultation. I wouldn't have come. I 
 thought I'd just rock on your porch for an hour " 
 
 "Sit down," she commanded. 
 
 Harry hesitated. 
 
 "Sit down, Harry, dear boy." Her kindness flooded 
 out now — enveloped him. "I know there's something 
 the matter. You're white as a sheet. I'm going to 
 get you a cool bottle of beer." 
 
 All at once he collapsed into his chair and covered his 
 face with his hands. 
 
 "I can't make her happy," he said slowly. "I've tried 
 and I've tried. This morning we had some words about 
 breakfast — ^I'd been getting my breakfast down town — 
 and — well, just after I went to the office she left the 
 house, went East to her mother's with George and a 
 suitcase full of lace imderwear." 
 "Harry!" 
 
290 TALES OF THE JAZZ AGE 
 
 "And I don't know " 
 
 There was a crunch on the gravel, a car turning into 
 the drive. Roxanne uttered a little cry. 
 
 "It's Doctor Jewett." 
 
 "Oh, I'll " 
 
 "You'll wait, won't you ?" she interrupted abstract- 
 edly. He saw that his problem had already died on the 
 troubled surface of her mind. 
 
 There was an embarrassing minute of vague, elided 
 introductions and then Harry followed the party inside 
 and watched them disappear up the stairs. He went 
 into the library and sat down on the big sofa. 
 
 For an hour he watched the sun creep up the pat- 
 terned folds of the chintz curtains. In the deep quiet 
 a trapped wasp buzzing on the inside of the window 
 pane assumed the proportions of a clamor. From time 
 to time another buzzing drifted down from up-stairs, 
 resembling several more larger wasps caught on larger 
 window-panes. He heard low footfalls, the dink of 
 bottles, the clamor of pouring water. 
 
 What had he and Roxanne done that life should deal 
 these crashing blows to them ? Up-stairs there was 
 taking place a living inquest on the soul of his friend; 
 he was sitting here in a quiet room listening to the plaint 
 of a wasp, just as when he was a boy he had been com- 
 pelled by a strict aunt to sit hour-long on a chair and 
 atone for some misbehavior. But who had put him 
 here ? What ferocious aunt had leaned out of the sky 
 to make him atone for — what ? 
 
 About Kitty he felt a great hopelessness. She was 
 too expensive — that was the irremediable difficulty. 
 Suddenly he hated her. He wanted to throw her down 
 and kick at her — to tell her she was a cheat and a leech 
 — that she was dirty. Moreover, she must give him his 
 boy. 
 
THE LEES OF HAPPINESS 291 
 
 He rose and began pacing up and down the room. 
 Simultaneously he heard some one begin walking along 
 the hallway up-stairs in exact time with him. He found 
 himself wondering if they would walk in time until the 
 person reached the end of the hall. 
 
 Elitty had gone to her mother. God help her, what 
 a mother to go to ! He tried to imagine the meeting: 
 the abused wife collapsing upon the mother's breast. 
 He could not. That Kitty was capable of any deep 
 grief was unbelievable. He had gradually grown to 
 think of her as something unapproachable and callous. 
 She would get a divorce, of course, and eventually she 
 would marry again. He began to consider this. Whom 
 would she marry? He laughed bitterly, stopped; a 
 picture flashed before him — of ELitty's arms around 
 some man whose face he could not see, of Kitty's lips 
 pressed dose to other lips in what was surely passion, 
 
 "God!" he cried aloud. "God! God! God!" 
 
 Then the pictures came thick and fast. The Eatty 
 of this morning faded; the soiled kimono rolled up and 
 disappeared; the pouts, and rages, and tears all were 
 washed away. Again she was Kitty Carr — ^Kitty Carr 
 with yellow hair and great baby eyes. Ah, she had 
 loved him, she had loved him. 
 
 After a while he perceived that something was amiss 
 with him, something that had nothing to do with Kitty 
 or Jeff, something of a different genre. Amazingly it 
 burst on him at last; he was hungry. Simple enough! 
 He would go into the kitchen in a moment and ask the 
 colored cook for a sandwich. After that he must go 
 back to the city. 
 
 He paused at the waU, jerked at something round, 
 and, fingering it absently, put it to his mouth and tasted 
 it as a baby tastes a bright toy. His teeth closed on it 
 —Ah! 
 
292 TALES OF THE JAZZ AGE 
 
 She'd left that damn kimono, that dirty pink kimono. 
 She might have had the decency to take it with her, he 
 thought. It would hang in the house like the corpse 
 of their sick alliance. He would try to throw it away, 
 but he would never be able to bring himself to move it. 
 It would be like Kitty, soft and pliable, withal imper- 
 vious. You couldn't move Kitty; you couldn't reach 
 Kitty. There was nothing there to reach. He under- 
 stood that perfectly — ^he had understood it all along. 
 
 He reached to the wall for another biscuit and with an 
 effort pulled it out, nail and all. He carefully removed 
 the nail from the centre, wondering idly if he had eaten 
 the nail with the first biscuit. Preposterous ! He would 
 have remembered — it was a huge nail. He felt his 
 stomach. He must be very hungry. He considered — 
 remembered — ^yesterday he had had no dinner. It was 
 the girl's day out and Kitty had lain ia her room eating 
 chocolate drops. She had said she felt "smothery" and 
 couldn't bear having him near her. He had given George 
 a bath and put him to bed, and then lain down on the 
 couch intending to rest a minute before getting his own 
 dinner. There he had fallen asleep and awakened about 
 eleven, to find that there was nothing in the ice-box 
 except a spoonful of potato salad. This he had eaten, 
 together with some chocolate drops that he found on 
 Kitty's bureau. This morning he had breakfasted hur- 
 riedly down town before going to the ofl&ce. But at 
 noon, beginning to worry about Kitty, he had decided 
 to go home and take her out to lunch. After that there 
 had been the note on his pillow. The pile of lingerie 
 in the closet was gone — and she had left instructions for 
 sending her trunk. 
 
 He had never been so hungry, he thought. 
 
 At five o'clock, when the visiting nurse tiptoed down- 
 stairs, he was sitting on the sofa staring at the carpet. 
 
 "Mr. Cromwell?" 
 
THE LEES OF HAPPINESS 293 
 
 "Yes?" 
 
 "Oh, Mrs. Curtain won't be able to see you at dinner. 
 She's not well. She told me to tell you that the cook 
 will fix y^u something and that there's a spare bedroom," 
 
 " She's sick, you say ? " 
 
 "She's lying down in her room. The consultation 
 is just over." 
 
 "Did they — did they decide anything?" 
 
 "Yes," said the nurse softly, "Doctor Jewett says 
 there's no hope. Mr. Curtain may live indefinitely, 
 but he'll never see again or move again or think. He'll 
 just breathe." 
 
 "Just breathe?" 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 For the first time the nurse noted that beside the writ- 
 ing-desk where she remembered that she had seen a line 
 of a dozen curious round objects she had vaguely imag- 
 ined to be some exotic form of decoration, there was now 
 only one. Where the others had been, there was now 
 a series of little nail-holes. 
 
 Harry followed her glance dazedly and then rose to 
 his feet. 
 
 "I don't believe I'll stay, I believe there's a train." 
 
 She nodded. Harry picked up his hat. 
 
 "Good-by," she said pleasantly. 
 
 "Good-by," he answered, as though talking to him- 
 self and, evidently moved by some involuntary necessity, 
 he paused on his way to the door and she saw him pluck 
 the last object from the wall and drop it into his pocket. 
 
 Then he opened the screen door and, descending the 
 porch steps, passed out of her sight. 
 
 After a while the coat of clean white paint on the 
 Jeffrey Curtain house made a definite compromise with 
 
294 TALES OF THE JAZZ AGE 
 
 the suns of many Julys and showed its good faith by 
 turning gray. It scaled — huge peelings of very brittle 
 old paint leaned over backward like aged men practising 
 grotesque gymnastics and finally dropped to a moldy 
 death in the overgrown grass beneath. The paint on 
 the front pillars became streaky; the white ball was 
 knocked off the left-hand door-post; the green blinds 
 darkened, then lost all pretense of color. 
 
 It began to be a house that was avoided by the tender- 
 minded — some church bought a lot diagonally opposite 
 for a graveyard, and this, combined with "the place 
 where Mrs Curtain stays with that living corpse," was 
 enough to throw a ghostly aura over that quarter of the 
 road. Not that she was left alone. Men and women 
 came to see her, met her down town, where she went to 
 do her marketing, brought her home in their cars — and 
 came in for a moment to talk and to rest, in the glamour 
 that stUl played in her smile. But men who did not 
 know her no longer followed her with admiring glances 
 in the street; a diaphanous veil had come down over her 
 beauty, destro3dng its vividness, yet bringing neither 
 wrinkles nor fat. 
 
 She acquired a character in the village — a group of 
 little stories were told of her: how when the country was 
 frozen over one winter so that no wagons nor automo- 
 biles could travel, she taught herself to skate so that she 
 could make quick time to the grocer and druggist, and 
 not leave Jeffrey alone for long. It was said that every 
 night since his paralysis she slept in a small bed beside 
 his bed, holding his hand. 
 
 Jeffrey Curtain was spoken of as though he were 
 already dead. As the years dropped by those who had 
 known him died or moved away — there were but half 
 a dozen of the old crowd who had drunk cocktails to- 
 gether, called each other's wives by their first names, 
 
THE LEES OF HAPPINESS 295 
 
 and thought that Jeff was about the wittiest and most 
 talented fellow that Marlowe had ever known. Now, to 
 the casual visitor, he was merely the reason that Mrs. 
 Curtain excused herself sometimes and hurried up-stairs; 
 he was a groan or a sharp cry borne to the silent parlor 
 on the heavy air of a Sunday afternoon. 
 
 He could not move; he was stone blind, dumb, and 
 totally unconscious. All day he lay in his bed, except 
 for a shift to his wheel-chair every morning while she 
 straightened the room. His paralysis was creeping 
 slowly toward his heart. At first — for the first year 
 — Roxanne had received the faintest answering pres- 
 sure sometimes when she held his hand — then it had 
 gone, ceased one evening and never come back, and 
 through two nights Roxanne lay wide-eyed, staring into 
 the dark and wondering what had gone, what fraction 
 of his soul had taken flight, what last grain of compre- 
 hension those shattered broken nerves still carried to 
 the brain. 
 
 After that hope died. Had it not been for her im- 
 ceasing care the last spark would have gone long before. 
 Every morning she shaved and bathed him, shifted him 
 with her own hands from bed to chair and back to bed. 
 She was in his room constantly, bearing medicine, 
 straightening a pillow, talking to him almost as one talks 
 to a nearly human dog, without hope of response or 
 appreciation, but with the dim persuasion of habit, a 
 prayer when faith has gone. 
 
 Not a few people, one celebrated nerve specialist 
 among them, gave her a plain impression that it was 
 futile to exercise so much care, that if Jeffrey had been 
 conscious he would have wished to die, that if his spirit 
 were hovering in some wider air it would agree to no 
 such sacrifice from her, it would fret only for the prison 
 of its body to give it full release. 
 
296 TALES OF THE JAZZ AGE 
 
 "But you see," she replied, shaking her head gently, 
 "when I married Jeffrey it was — until I ceased to love 
 him." 
 
 "But," was protested, in effect, "you can't love that." 
 
 "I can love what it once was. What else is there for 
 me to do?" 
 
 The specialist shrugged his shoulders and went away 
 to say that Mrs. Curtain was a remarkable woman and 
 just about as sweet as an angel — but, he added, it was 
 a terrible pity. 
 
 "There must be some man, or a dozen, Just crazy 
 to take care of her. . . ." 
 
 Casually — there were. Here and there some one be- 
 gan in hope — and ended in reverence. There was no 
 love in the woman except, strangely enough, for life, 
 for the people in the world, from the tramp to whom 
 she gave food she could ill afford to the butcher who sold 
 her a cheap cut of steak across the meaty board. The 
 other phase was sealed up somewhere in that expression- 
 less mummy who lay with his face turned ever toward 
 the light as mechanically as a compass needle and 
 waited dumbly for the last wave to wash over his 
 heart. 
 
 After eleven years he died in the middle of a May 
 night, when the scent of the syringa hung upon the win- 
 dow-sill and a breeze wafted in the shrillings of the frogs 
 and cicadas outside. Roxanne awoke at two, and real- 
 ized with a start she was alone in the house at last. 
 
 VI 
 
 After that she sat on her weather-beaten porch through 
 many afternoons, gazing down across the fields that 
 undulated in a slow descent to the white and green town. 
 She was wondering what she would do with her life. 
 
THE LEES OF HAPPINESS 297 
 
 She was thirty-six — ^handsome, strong, and free. The 
 years had eaten up Jeffrey's insurance; she had reluc- 
 tantly parted with the acres to right and left of her, 
 and had even placed a small mortgage on the house. 
 
 With her husband's death had come a great physical 
 restlessness. She missed having to care for him in the 
 morning, she missed her rush to town, and the brief 
 and therefore accentuated neighborly meetings in the 
 butcher's and grocer's; she missed the cooking for two, 
 the preparation of delicate liquid food for him. One day, 
 consumed with energy, she went out and spaded up the 
 whole garden, a thing that had not been done for years. 
 
 And she was alone at night in the room that had seen 
 the glory of her marriage and then the pain. To meet 
 Jeff again she went back in spirit to that wonderful year, 
 that intense, passionate absorption and companionship, 
 rather than looked forward to a problematical meeting 
 hereafter; she awoke often to lie and wish for that pres- 
 ence beside her — ^inanimate yet breathing — stiU Jeff. 
 
 One afternoon six months after his death she was 
 sitting on the porch, in a black dress which took away 
 the faintest suggestion of plumpness from her figure. 
 It was Indian summer — ^golden brown all about her; 
 a hush broken by the sighing of leaves; westward a 
 four o'clock Sim dripping streaks of red and yellow over 
 a flaming sky. Most of the birds had gone — only a 
 sparrow that had built itself a nest on the cornice of a 
 pillar kept up an intermittent cheeping varied by oc- 
 casional fluttering sallies overhead. Roxanne moved 
 her chair to where she could watch him and her mind 
 idled drowsily on the bosom of the afternoon. 
 
 Harry Cromwell was coming out from Chicago to 
 dinner. Since his divorce over eight years before he 
 had been a frequent visitor. They had kept up what 
 amounted to a tradition between them: when he ar- 
 
298 TALES OF THE JAZZ AGE 
 
 rived they would go to look at Jeff; Harry would sit 
 down on the edge of the bed and in a hearty voice ask: 
 
 "Well, Jeff, old man, how do you feel to-day?" 
 
 Roxanne, standing beside, would look intently at 
 Jeff, dreaming that some shadowy recognition of this 
 former friend had passed across that broken mind — but 
 the head, pale, carven, would only move slowly in its 
 sole gesture toward the light as if something behind the 
 blind eyes were groping for another light long since gone 
 out. 
 
 These visits stretched over eight years — at Easter, 
 Christmas, Thanksgiving, and on many a Sunday 
 Harry had arrived, paid his call on Jeff, and then talked 
 for a long while with Roxanne on the porch. He was 
 devoted to her. He made no pretense of hiding, no 
 attempt to deepen, this relation. She was his best 
 friend as the mass of flesh on the bed there had been his 
 best friend. She was peace, she was rest; she was the 
 past. Of his own tragedy she alone knew. 
 
 He had been at the funeral, but since then the com- 
 pany for which he worked had shifted him to the East 
 and only a business trip had brought him to the vicinity 
 of Chicago. Roxanne had written him to come when he 
 could — after a night in the city he had caught a train 
 out. 
 
 They shook hands and he helped her move two rockers 
 together. 
 
 "How's George?" 
 
 "He's fine, Roxanne. Seems to like school." 
 
 "Of course it was the only thing to do, to send him." 
 
 "Of course " 
 
 "You miss him horribly, Harry ?" 
 
 "Yes — I do miss him. He's a funny boy " 
 
 He talked a lot about George. Roxanne was inter- 
 ested. Harry must bring him out on his next vacation. 
 
THE LEES OF HAPPINESS 299 
 
 She had only seen him once in her life — a child in dirty 
 rompers. 
 
 She left him with the newspaper while she prepared 
 dinner — she had four chops to-night and some late vege- 
 tables from her own garden. She put it all on and then 
 called him, and sitting down together they continued 
 their talk about George. 
 
 "If I had a child — " she would say. 
 
 Afterward, Harry having given her what slender ad- 
 vice he could about investments, they walked through 
 the garden, pausing here and there to recognize what 
 had once been a cement bench or where the tennis court 
 had lain . . . 
 
 "Do you remember " 
 
 Then they were off on a flood of reminiscences: the 
 day they had taken all the snap-shots and Jeff had been 
 photographed astride the calf; and the sketch Harry 
 had made of Jeff and Roxanne, lying sprawled in the 
 grass, their heads almost touching. There was to have 
 been a covered lattice connecting the barn-studio with 
 the house, so that Jeff could get there on wet days — 
 the lattice had been started, but nothing remained ex- 
 cept a broken triangular piece that still adhered to the 
 house and resembled a battered chicken coop. 
 
 "And those mint juleps!" 
 
 "And Jeff's note-book ! Do you remember how we'd 
 laugh, Harry, when we'd get it out of his pocket and 
 read aloud a page of material. And how friintic he 
 used to get?" 
 
 "Wild ! He was such a kid about his writing." 
 
 They were both silent a moment, and then Harry 
 said: 
 
 "We were to have a place out here, too. Do you 
 remember? We were to buy the adjoining twenty 
 acres. And the parties we were going to have !" 
 
300 TALES OF THE JAZZ AGE 
 
 Again there was a pause, broken this time by a low- 
 question from Roxanne. 
 
 "Do you ever hear of her, Harry?" 
 
 "Why— yes," he admitted placidly. "She's in Se- 
 attle. She's married again to a man named Horton, a 
 sort of lumber king. He's a great deal older than she 
 is, I believe." 
 
 "And she's behaving?" 
 
 "Yes — that is, I've heard so. She has everything, 
 you see. Nothing much to do except dress up for this 
 fellow at dinner-time." 
 
 "I see." 
 
 Without effort he changed the subject. 
 
 "Are you going to keep the house?" 
 
 "I think so," she said, nodding. "I've lived here so 
 long, Harry, it'd seem terrible to move. I thought of 
 trained nursing, but of course that'd mean leaving. 
 I've about decided to be a boarding-house lady." 
 
 "Live in one?" 
 
 "No. Keep one. Is there such an anomaly as a 
 boarding-house lady ? Anyway I'd have a negress and 
 keep about eight people in the summer and two or three, 
 if I can get them, in the winter. Of course I'll have to 
 have the house repainted and gone over inside." 
 
 Harry considered. 
 
 "Roxanne, why — naturally you know best what you 
 can do, but it does seem a shock, Roxanne. You came 
 here as a bride." 
 
 "Perhaps," she said, "that's why I don't mind re- 
 maining here as a boarding-house lady." 
 
 "I remember a certain batch of biscuits." 
 
 "Oh, those biscuits," she cried. "Still, from all I 
 heard about the way you devoured them, they couldn't 
 have been so bad. I was so low that day, yet somehow 
 I laughed when the nurse told me about those biscuits." 
 
THE LEES OF HAPPINESS 301 
 
 "I noticed that the twelve nail-holes are stiU in the 
 library wall where Jeff drove them." 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 It was getting very dark now, a crispness settled in 
 the air; a little gust of wind sent down a last spray of 
 leaves. Roxanne shivered slightly. 
 
 "We'd better go in." 
 
 He looked at his watch. 
 
 "It's late. I've got to be leaving. I go East to- 
 morrow." 
 
 "Must you?" 
 
 They lingered for a moment just below the stoop, 
 watching a moon that seemed full of snow float out of the 
 distance where the lake lay. Summer was gone and now 
 Indian summer. The grass was cold and there was no 
 mist and no dew. After he left she would go in and 
 light the gas and close the shutters, and he would go 
 down the path and on to the village. To these two 
 life had come quickly and gone, leaving not bitterness, 
 but pity; not disillusion, but only pain. There was 
 already enough moonlight when they shook hands for 
 each to see the gathered kindness in the other's eyes. 
 
MR. ICKY 
 
 THE QUINTESSENCE OF QUAINTNESS IN 
 ONE ACT 
 
 The Scene is the Exterior of a Cottage in West Issacshire 
 on a desperately Arcadian afternoon in August. 
 . . IMr. Icky, quaintly dressed in the costume of an Eliza- 
 ,f^ ■> ietkan peasant, is pottering and doddering among the 
 1^ ^,, pots and dods."), He is an old man, well past the prime 
 i%^ ^ of life, no longer young. From the fact that there is 
 a burr in his speech and that he has absent-mindedly 
 put on his coat wrongside out, we surmise that he is 
 either above or below the ordinary superficialities of 
 life. 
 Near him on the grass lies Peter, a little boy. 'Pjs.tevl,' of 
 course, has his chin on his palm like the pictures of 
 the young Sir Walter Raleigh. He has a complete 
 set of features, including serious, sombre, even fu- 
 nereal, gray eyes — and radiates that alluring air of 
 never having eaten food. This air can best be radiated 
 during the afterglow of a beef dinner. He is looking at 
 Mr. Icky, fascinated. 
 Silence. . . . The song of birds. 
 
 Peter: Often at night I sit at my window and regard 
 the stars. Sometimes I think they're my stars. . . . 
 (Gravely) 1 think I shall be a star some day. . . . 
 
 Mr. Icky: (Whimsically) Yes, yes . . . yes. . . . 
 
 Peter: I know them all: Venus, Mars, Neptime, 
 Gloria Swanson. 
 
 3oa 
 
MR. ICKY 303 
 
 Mr. Icky: I don't take no stock in astronomy. . . . 
 I've been thinking o' Lunnon, laddie. And calling to 
 mind my daughter, who has gone for to be a type- 
 writer. . . . {He sighs) 
 
 Peter: I liked Ulsa, Mr, Icky; she was so plump, so 
 round, so buxom. 
 
 Mr. Icky: Not worth the paper she was padded with, 
 laddie. {He stumbles over a pile of pots and dods.) 
 
 Peter: How is your asthma, Mr. Icky ? 
 
 Mr. Icky: Worse, thank God ! . . . (Gloomily.) I'm 
 a hundred years old. . . . I'm getting brittle. 
 
 Peter: I suppose life has been pretty tame since you 
 gave up petty arson. 
 
 Mr. Icky: Yes . . . yes. . . . You see, Peter, lad- 
 die, when I was fifty I reformed once — ^in prison. 
 
 Peter: You went wrong again ? 
 
 Mr. Icky: Worse than that. The week before my 
 term expired they insisted on transferring to me the 
 glands of a healthy young prisoner they were executing. 
 
 Peter: And it renovated you ? 
 
 Mr. Icky: Renovated me ! It put the Old Nick back 
 into me ! This young criminal was evidently a subur- 
 ban burglar and a kleptomaniac. What was a little 
 playful arson in comparison ! 
 
 Peter: (Awed) How ghastly! Science is the bunk. 
 
 Mr. Icky: (Sighing) I got him pretty well subdued 
 now. 'Tisn't every one who has to tire out two sets 
 o' glands in his lifetime. I wouldn't take another set 
 for all the animal spirits in an orphan asylum. 
 
 Peter: (Considering) I shouldn't think you'd object 
 to a nice quiet old clergyman's set. 
 
 Mr. Icky: Clergymen haven't got glands — they have 
 souls. 
 
 (There is a low, sonorous honking ojff stage to indi- 
 cate that a large motor-car has stopped in the 
 
304 TALES OF THE JAZZ AGE 
 
 immediate vicinity. Then a young man hand- 
 somely attired in a dress-suit and a patent- 
 leather silk hat comes onto the stage. He is 
 very mundane. His contrast to the spirituality 
 of the other two is observable as far back as the 
 first row of the balcony. This is Rodney 
 Divine.) 
 Divine: I am looking for Ulsa Icky. 
 
 (Mr. Icky rises and stands tremulously between 
 two dods.) 
 Mr. Icky: My daughter is in Lunnon. 
 Divine: She has left London. She is coming here. 
 I have followed her. 
 
 (He reaches into the little mother-of-pearl satchel 
 that hangs at his side for cigarettes. He selects 
 one and scratching a match touches it to the cigar- 
 ette. The cigarette instantly lights.) 
 Divine: I shall wait. 
 
 {He waits. Several hours pass. There is no sound 
 except an occasional cackle or hiss from the dods 
 as they quarrel among themselves. Several songs 
 can be introduced here or some card tricks by 
 Divine or a tumbling act, as desired) 
 Divine: It's very quiet here. 
 Mr. Icky: Yes, very quiet. . . . 
 
 {Suddenly a loudly dressed girl appears; she is 
 very worldly. It is Ulsa Icky. On her is one 
 of those shapeless faces peculiar to early Italian 
 painting.) 
 Ulsa: (In a coarse, worldly voice) Feyther! Here I 
 am ! Ulsa did what ? 
 Mr. Icky: (Tremulously) Ulsa, little Ulsa. 
 
 (They embrace each other's torsos.) 
 Mr. Icky: (Hopefully) You've come back to help 
 with the ploughing. 
 
MR. ICKY 305 
 
 Ulsa: (Sullenly) No, feyther; ploughing's such a 
 beyther. I'd reyther not. 
 
 (Though her accent is broad, the content of her 
 speech is sweet and clean.) 
 
 Divine: (Conciliatingly) See here, Ulsa. Let's come 
 to an understanding. 
 
 (He advances toward her with the graceful, even 
 stride that made him captain of the striding team 
 at Cambridge.) 
 
 Ulsa: You still say it would be Jack? 
 
 Mr. Icky: What does she mean ? 
 
 Divine: (Kindly) My dear, of course, it would be 
 Jack. It couldn't be Frank. 
 
 Mr. Icky: Frank who.? 
 
 Ulsa: It would be Frank ! 
 
 (Some risque joke can be introduced here.) 
 
 Me. Icky: {Whimsically) No good fighting ... no 
 good fighting. . . . 
 
 Divine: (Reaching out to stroke her arm with the 
 powerful movement that made him stroke of the crew at 
 Oxford) You'd better marry me. 
 
 Ulsa: (Scornfully) Why, they wouldn't let me in 
 through the servants' entrance of your house. 
 
 Divine: (Angrily) They wouldn't! Never fear — you 
 shall come in through the mistress' entrance. 
 
 Ulsa: Sir! 
 
 DrvENE : (In confusion) I beg your pardon. You know 
 what I mean ? 
 
 Mr. Icky: (Aching with whimsey) You want to marry 
 my little Ulsa ? . . . 
 
 Divine: I do. 
 
 Mr. Icky: Your record is clean. 
 
 Divine: Excellent. I have the best constitution in 
 the world 
 
 Ulsa: And the worst by-laws. 
 
3o6 TALES OF THE JAZZ AGE 
 
 Divine: At Eton I was a member at Pop; at Rugby 
 I belonged to Near-beer. As a younger son I was 
 destined for the police force 
 
 Mr. Icky: Skip that. . . . Have you money? . . . 
 
 Divine: Wads of it. I should expect Ulsa to go 
 down town in sections every morning — ^in two RoUs- 
 Royces. I have also a kiddy-car and a converted tank. 
 I have seats at the opera 
 
 Ulsa: (Sullenly) I can't sleep except in a box. And 
 I've heard that you were cashiered from your club. 
 
 Mr. Icky: A cashier? . . . 
 
 Divine: (Hanging his head) I was cashiered. 
 
 Ulsa: What for? 
 
 Divine: (Almost inaudibly) I hid the polo balls one 
 day for a joke. 
 
 Mr. Icky: Is your mind in good shape ? 
 
 Divine: (Gloomily) Fair. After all what is brilliance ? 
 Merely the tact to sow when no one is looking and reap 
 when every one is. 
 
 Mr. Icky: Be careful. ... I will not marry my 
 daughter to an epigram. . . . 
 
 Divine: (More gloomily) 1 assure you I'm a mere 
 platitude. I often descend to the level of an innate 
 idea. 
 
 Ulsa: (Dully) None of what you're saying matters. 
 I can't marry a man who thinks it would be Jack. Why 
 Frank would 
 
 Divine: (Interrupting) Nonsense! 
 
 Ulsa: (Emphatically) You're a fool! 
 
 Mr. Icky: Tut — tut ! . . . One should not judge . . . 
 Charity, my girl. What was it Nero said? — "With 
 malice toward none, with charity toward all " 
 
 Peter: That wasn't Nero. That was John Drink- 
 water. 
 
 Mr. Icky: Come! Who is this Frank? Who is 
 this Jack ? 
 
MR. ICKY 307 
 
 Divine: {Morosely) Gotch. 
 Ulsa: Dempsey. 
 
 Divine: We were arguing that if they were deadly 
 enemies and locked in a room together which one would 
 come out alive. Now I claimed that Jack Dempsey 
 
 would take one 
 
 Ulsa: {Angrily) Rot! He wouldn't have a 
 
 Divine : {Quickly) You win. 
 Ulsa: Then I love you again. 
 Mr. Icky: So I'm going to lose my little daugh- 
 ter. . . . 
 Ulsa: You've stiU got a houseful of children. 
 
 (Charles, Ulsa's brother, coming out of the cot- 
 tage. He is dressed as if to go to sea; a coil of 
 rope is slung about his shoulder and an anchor is 
 hanging from his neck.) 
 Charles: {Not seeing them) I'm going to sea! I'm 
 going to sea ! 
 
 {His voice is triumphant.) 
 Mr. Icky: {Sadly) You went to seed long ago. 
 Charles: I've been reading "Conrad." 
 Peter: {Dreamily) "Conrad," ah! "Two Years 
 Before the Mast," by Henry James. 
 Charles: What? 
 
 Peter: Walter Pater's version of "Robinson Crusoe." 
 
 Charles: {To his feyther) I can't stay here and rot 
 
 with you. I want to live my life. I want to hunt eels. 
 
 Mr. Icky: I wiU be here . . . when you come 
 
 back. . . . 
 
 Charles : {Contemptuously) Why, the worms are lick- 
 ing their chops already when they hear your name. 
 
 {It will be noticed that some of the characters have 
 
 not spoken for some tim^. It will improve the 
 
 technique if they can be rendering a spirited 
 
 saxophone number^ 
 
 Mr. Icky: {Mournfully) These vales, these hills. 
 
3o8 TALES OF THE JAZZ AGE 
 
 these McCormick harvesters — they mean nothing to 
 my children. I understand. 
 
 Charles: {More gently) Then you'll think of me 
 kindly, feyther. To understand is to forgive. 
 
 Mr. Icky: No . . . no. . . . We never forgive those 
 we can understand. . . . We can only forgive those 
 who wound us for no reason at all. . . . 
 
 Charles: {Impatiently) I'm so beastly sick of your 
 human nature line. And, anyway, I hate the hours 
 around here. 
 
 {Several dozen more of Mr. Icky's children trip 
 
 out of the house, trip over the grass, and trip 
 
 over the pots and dods. They are muttering " We 
 
 are going away," and "We are leaving you.") 
 
 Mr. Icky: {His heart breaking) They're all deserting 
 
 me. I've been too kind. Spare the rod and spoil the 
 
 fun. Oh, for the glands of a Bismarck. 
 
 {There is a honking outside — probably Divine's 
 chauffeur growing impatient for his master.) 
 Mr. Icky: {In misery) They do not love the soil! 
 They have been faithless to the Great Potato Tradition ! 
 {He picks up a handful of soil passionately and rubs it 
 on his bald head. Hair sprouts.) Oh, Wordsworth, 
 Wordsworth, how true you spoke ! 
 
 "No motion has she now, no force; 
 
 She does not hear or feel; 
 Roll'd round on earth's diurnal course 
 
 In some one's Oldsmobile." 
 
 {They all groan and shouting "Life" and "Jazz" 
 move slowly toward the wings.) 
 Charles: Back to the soil, yes ! I've been trying to 
 turn my back to the soil for ten years ! 
 
 Another Child: The farmers may be the backbone 
 of the country, but who wants to be a backbone ? 
 
MR. ICKY 309 
 
 Another Child : I care not who hoes the lettuce of my 
 country if I can eat the salad ! 
 
 All: Life! Psychic Research! Jazz! 
 
 Mr. Icky: {Struggling with himself) I must be quaint. 
 That's all there is. It's not life that counts, it's the 
 quaintness you bring to it. . . . 
 
 All: We're going to slide down the Riviera. We've 
 got tickets for Piccadilly Circus. Life ! Jazz ! 
 
 Mr. Icky: Wait. Let me read to you from the Bible. 
 Let me open it at random. One always finds something 
 that bears on the situation, 
 
 (He finds a Bible lying in one of the dods and open- 
 ing it at random begins to read.) 
 
 "Anab and Istemo and Anim, Goson and Olon and 
 Gilo, eleven cities and their villages. Arab, and Ruma, 
 and Esaau " 
 
 Charles: {Cruelly) Buy ten more rings and try 
 again. 
 
 Mr. Icky: {Trying again) "How beautiful art thou 
 my love, how beautiful art thou ! Thy eyes are dove's 
 eyes, besides what is hid within. Thy hair is as flocks 
 of goats which come up from Mount Galaad — " Hm ! 
 Rather a coarse passage. . . . 
 
 {His children laugh at him rudely, shouting "Jazz 1 " 
 and "All life is primarily suggestive!") 
 
 Mr. Icky: {Despondently) It won't work to-day. 
 {Hopefully) Maybe it's damp. {He feels it) Yes, it's 
 damp. . . . There was water in the dod. ... It 
 won't work. 
 
 All: It's damp! It won't work! Jazz! 
 
 One op the Children: Come, we must catch the 
 six-thirty. 
 
 {Any other cue may be inserted here.) 
 
 Mr. Icky: Good-by. . . . 
 
 {They all go out. Mr. Icky is left alone. He 
 
3IO TALES OF THE JAZZ AGE 
 
 sighs and walking over to the cottage steps, lies 
 down, and closes his eyes. 
 
 Twilight has come down and the stage is flooded 
 with such light as never was on land or sea. 
 There is no sound except a sheep-herder's wife 
 in the distance playing an aria from Beethoven's 
 Tenth Symphony, on a mouth-organ. The great 
 white and gray m^ths swoop down and light on 
 the old man until he is completely covered by them. 
 But he does not stir. 
 
 The curtain goes up and down several times to de- 
 note the lapse of several minutes. A good comedy 
 effect can be obtained by having Mr. Icky cling 
 to the curtain and go up and down with it. Fire- 
 flies or fairies on wires can also be introduced at 
 this point. 
 
 Then Peter appears, a look of almost imbecile 
 sweetness on his face. In his hand he clutches 
 something and from time to time glances at it in 
 a transport of ecstasy. After a struggle with 
 himself he lays it on the old man's body and then 
 quietly withdraws. 
 
 The moths chatter among themselves and then scurry 
 away in sudden fright. And as night deepens 
 there still sparkles there, small, white and round, 
 breathing a subtle perfume to the West Issac- 
 shire breeze, Peter's gift of love — a moth-ball. 
 
 {The play can end at this point or can go on indefi- 
 nitely.) 
 
JEMINA, THE MOUNTAIN GIRL 
 
 This don't pretend to be "Literature." This is just a tale 
 for red-blooded folks who want a story and not just a lot of " psy- 
 chological " stuff or "analysis." Boy, you'll love it ! Read it 
 here, see it in the movies, play it on the phonograph, run it 
 through the sewing-machine. 
 
 A Wild Thing 
 
 It was night in the mountains of Kentucky. Wild 
 hills rose on all sides. Swift mountain streams flowed 
 rapidly up and down the mountains. 
 
 Jemina Tantrum was down at the stream, brewing 
 whiskey at the family still. 
 
 She was a t)^ical mountain girl. 
 
 Her feet were bare. Her hands, large and powerful, 
 hung down below her knees. Her face showed the 
 ravages of work. Although but sixteen, she had for 
 over a dozen years been supporting her aged pappy 
 and mappy by brewing mountain whiskey. 
 
 From time to time she would pause in her task, and, 
 filling a dipper fuU of the pure, invigorating liquid, would 
 drain it off — then pursue her work with renewed vigor. 
 
 She would place the rye in the vat, thresh it out with 
 her feet and, in twenty minutes, the completed product 
 would be turned out. 
 
 A sudden cry made her pause in the act of draining a 
 dipper and look up. 
 
 "Hello," said a voice. It came from a man clad in 
 hunting boots reaching to his neck, who had emerged 
 from the wood. 
 
 "Hi, thar," she answered suUenly. 
 
 311 
 
312 TALES OF THE JAZZ /.GE 
 
 " Can you tell me the way to the Tantrams' cabin ? " 
 
 "Are you uns from the settlements down thar?" 
 
 She pointed her hand down to the bottom of the hill, 
 where Louisville lay. She had never been there; but 
 once, before she was born, her great-grandfather, old 
 Gore Tantrum, had gone into the settlements in the com- 
 pany of two marshals, and had never come back. So 
 the Tantrums, from generation to generation, had learned 
 to dread civilization. 
 
 The man was amused. He laughed a light tinkling 
 laugh, the laugh of a Philadelphian. Something in the 
 ring of it thrilled her. She drank off another dipper of 
 whiskey. 
 
 "Where is Mr. Tantrum, little girl?" he asked, not 
 without kindness. 
 
 She raised her foot and pointed her big toe toward 
 the woods. 
 
 "Thar in the cabing behind those thar pines. Old 
 Tantrum air my old man." 
 
 The man from the settlements thanked her and strode 
 off. He was fairly vibrant with youth and personality. 
 As he walked along he whistled and sang and turned 
 handsprings and flapjacks, breathing in the fresh, cool 
 air of the mountains. 
 
 The air around the still was like wine. 
 
 Jemina Tantrum watched him entranced. No one 
 like him had ever come into her life before. 
 
 She sat down on the grass and counted her toes. She 
 counted eleven. She had learned arithmetic in the 
 mountain school. 
 
 A Mountain Feud 
 
 Ten years before a lady from the settlements had 
 opened a school on the mountain. Jemina had no 
 
JEMINA, THE MOUNTAIN GIRL 313 
 
 money, but she had paid her way in whiskey, bringing a 
 pailful to school every morning and leaving it on Miss 
 Lafarge's desk. Miss Lafarge had died of delirivma tre- 
 mens after a year's teaching, and so Jemina's education 
 had stopped. 
 
 Across the still stream still another still was standing. 
 It was that of the Doldrums. The Doldrums and the 
 Tantnmis never exchanged calls. 
 
 They hated each other. 
 
 Fifty years before old Jem Doldrum and old Jem Tan- 
 trum had quarrelled in the Tantrum cabin over a game 
 of slapjack. Jem Doldrum had thrown the king of 
 hearts in Jem Tantrum's face, and old Tantrum, en- 
 raged, had feUed the old Doldrum with the nine of dia- 
 monds. Other Doldrums and Tantrums had joined in 
 and the little cabin was soon filled with flying cards. 
 Harstrum Doldrum, one of the younger Doldrums, lay 
 stretched on the floor writhing in agony, the ace of hearts 
 crammed down his throat. Jem Tantrum, standing in 
 the doorway, ran through suit after suit, his face alight 
 with fiendish hatred. Old Mappy Tantrxmi stood on 
 the table wetting down the Doldrums with hot whiskey. 
 Old Heck Doldrum, having finally run out of trumps, 
 was backed out of the cabin, striking left and right with 
 his tobacco pouch, and gathering around him the rest of 
 his clan. Then they mounted their steers and galloped 
 furiously home. 
 
 That night old man Doldrum and his sons, vowing 
 vengeance, had returned, put a ticktock on the Tan- 
 trum window, stuck a pin in the doorbell, and beaten a 
 retreat. 
 
 A week later the Tantnmas had put Cod Liver Oil 
 in the Doldrums' still, and so, from year to year, the 
 feud had continued, first one family being entirely 
 wiped out, then the other. 
 
314 TALES OF THE JAZZ AGE 
 
 The Birth of Love 
 
 Every day little Jemina worked the still on her side of 
 the stream, and Boscoe Doldrum worked the still on his 
 side. 
 
 Sometimes, with automatic inherited hatred, the 
 feudists would throw whiskey at each other, and Jemina 
 would come home smelling like a French table d'h6te. 
 
 But now Jemina was too thoughtful to look across 
 the stream. 
 
 How wonderful the stranger had been and how oddly 
 he was dressed! In her innocent way she had never 
 believed that there were any civilized settlements at 
 all, and she had put the belief in them down to the 
 credulity of the mountain people. 
 
 She turned to go up to the cabin, and, as she turned 
 something struck her in the neck. It was a sponge, 
 thrown by Boscoe Doldrum — a sponge soaked in whis- 
 key from his still on the other side of the stream. 
 
 "Hi, thar, Boscoe Doldrum," she shouted in her deep 
 bass voice. 
 
 " Yo ! Jemina Tantrum. Gosh ding yo' !" he returned. 
 
 She continued her way to the cabin. 
 
 The stranger was talking to her father. Gold had 
 been discovered on the Tantrum land, and the stranger, 
 Edgar Edison, was trying to buy the land for a song. 
 He was considering what song to offer. 
 
 She sat upon her hands and watched him. 
 
 He was wonderful. When he talked his lips moved. 
 
 She sat upon the stove and watched him. 
 
 Suddenly there came a blood-curdling scream. The 
 Tantrums rushed to the windows. 
 
 It was the Doldrums. 
 
 They had hitched their steers to trees and concealed 
 
JEMINA, THE MOUNTAIN GIRL 315 
 
 themselves behind the bushes and flowers, and soon a 
 perfect rattle of stones and bricks beat against the win- 
 dows, bending them inward. 
 
 "Father! father!" shrieked Jemina. 
 
 Her father took down his slingshot from his slingshot 
 rack on the wall and ran his hand lovingly over the elas- 
 tic band. He stepped to a loophole. Old Mappy Tan- 
 trum stepped to the coalhole. 
 
 A Mountain Battle 
 
 The stranger was aroused at last. Furious to get at 
 the Doldrums, he tried to escape from the house by crawl- 
 ing up the chimney. Then he thought there might be 
 a door under the bed, but Jemina told him there was not. 
 He hunted for doors under the beds and sofas, but each 
 time Jemina pulled him out and told him there were no 
 doors there. Furious with anger, he beat upon the 
 door and hollered at the Doldrums. They did not 
 answer him, but kept up their fusillade of bricks and 
 stones against the window. Old Pappy Tantrum knew 
 that as soon as they were able to effect an aperture they 
 would pour in and the fight would be over. 
 
 Then old Heck Doldrum, foaming at the mouth and 
 expectorating on the groimd, left and right, led the 
 attack. 
 
 The terrific slingshots of Pappy Tantrum had not 
 been without their effect. A master shot had disabled 
 one Doldrum, and another Doldrum, shot almost inces- 
 santly through the abdomen, fought feebly on. 
 
 Nearer and nearer they approached the house. 
 
 "We must fly," shouted the stranger to Jemina. "I 
 will sacrifice myself and bear you away." 
 
 "No," shouted Pappy Tantrum, his face begrimed. 
 "You stay here and fit on. I wiU bar Jemina away. I 
 will bar Mappy away. I will bar myself away." 
 
31 6 TALES OF THE JAZZ AGE 
 
 The man from the settlements, pale and trembling 
 with anger, turned to Ham Tantrum, who stood at the 
 door throwing loophole after loophole at the advancing 
 Doldrums. 
 
 "Wni you cover the retreat?" 
 
 But Ham said that he too had Tantrums to bear 
 away, but that he would leave himself here to help the 
 stranger cover the retreat, if he could think of a way of 
 doing it. 
 
 Soon smoke began to filter through the floor and ceil- 
 ing. Shem Doldrum had come up and touched a match 
 to old Japhet Tantrum's breath as he leaned from a 
 loophole, and the alcoholic flames shot up on all sides. 
 
 The whiskey in the bathtub caught fire. The walls 
 began to fall in. 
 
 Jemina and the man from the settlements looked at 
 each other. 
 
 "Jemina," he whispered. 
 
 "Stranger," she answered. 
 
 "We will die together," he said. "If we had lived I 
 would have taken you to the city and married you. 
 With your ability to hold liquor, your social success 
 would have been assured." 
 
 She caressed him idly for a moment, counting her toes 
 softly to herseK. The smoke grew thicker. Her left 
 leg was on fire. 
 
 She was a human alcohol lamp. 
 
 Their lips met in one long kiss and then a wall fell on 
 them and blotted them out. 
 
 "As One." 
 
 When the Doldrums burst through the ring of flame, 
 they found them dead where they had fallen, their 
 arms about each other. 
 
JEMINA, THE MOUNTAIN GIRL 317 
 
 Old Jem Doldrum was moved. 
 
 He took off his hat. 
 
 He filled it with whiskey and drank it off. 
 
 "They air dead," he said slowly, "they hankered 
 after each other. The fit is over now. We must not 
 part them." 
 
 So they threw them together into the stream and the 
 two splashes they made were as one.